Red vs Blue: After the Recon II
by Stelladea
Summary: As they take a vacation from the war, the Blood Gulchers find that their holiday is anything but a break from the madness. For some reason, CIA Agents and Freelancers keep getting in the way of their relaxation...
1. Snap, Crackle, Pop, Part IV

I sat at my desk much too early the next morning, sucking down a black coffee with an extra shot of espresso. I needed caffeine. Today would not be a good day to suffer jet lag… or portal lag? Whatever…

The boys hadn't taken the news of my leaving well. Hale had told me to come back to the CIA headquarters immediately… so that's what I had done. I had yelled a quick goodbye at them over the roof of Blue base, telling them that I couldn't come back and that the Deep Space Mail Service would be coming by to pick up my stuff. They protested, flabbergasted, at this quick departure, but before they could run to the roof and discover I was choking up from having to leave so soon, I ran through the portal and locked it behind me.

Now, I sat in my office. Although it was only 0500, the CIA was already humming busily. I had decided to get to work early, knowing that an enormous pile of paperwork would greet me. I was right. It sat uniformly in front of me, begging to be filled out. This was the part I always hated the most about ending a mission. All the damn papers.

I sighed and settled down, unable to procrastinate from them anymore. The first thing I had to do was make a Mental Stability Note for each one of the Blood Gulch soldiers. I smiled grimly.

_Name:__ Franklin Delano __Donut_

_Rank: Private _

_Outpost: Blood Gulch Alpha_

_Armor Identification: Pink_

At the last line, I smiled and erased my answer, adding _lightish red_ instead.

_Mental condition: Stable_

_Evidence of condition:_

Hmm...

_Evidence of condition: Normal interactions with teammates_

_Details: Works well with others and acts as mediator and peacekeeper. Does share of the work, especially inside the base. Bakes a mean strawberry shortcake._

I thought about erasing the last sentence, but decided to leave it in.

God, I missed them.

* * *

><p>I heard a knock at my door.<p>

"Come in," I said. I expected an intern to hand me yet another pile of papers, but the soldier who walked in certainly wasn't a rookie.

"Wash?"

"Surprise."

The ex-Freelancer leaned in the doorway, gazing at me.

"What are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too," he replied coldly, raising an eyebrow. "Mind if I come in?"

"I suppose not," I said, still a little surprised. He sat down in the chair opposite my desk. "Why aren't you at Command?"

"I'm still working for Command, if that's what you mean. But I'm here because I've been given another mission, and Command thinks I should take a CIA Agent with me."

"Don't be stupid, Wash. You wouldn't be allowed to choose your own partner."

Wash laughed disdainfully. "You think that I'd be here if I got to choose my own partner? They're the ones who talked to Hale about it and sent me here. So... I've got a bad feeling they're going to pair us up."

"You don't know that. There are plenty of other Agents in this department."

"You're the highest-ranking one here, though."

I raised an eyebrow. "The CIA doesn't always choose people for missions based on rank… you of all people know that."

Wash's eyes perked up with understanding. "Hmm… that's true. But I still think they're going to pick you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, you have plenty of experience where I'm going."

"And where is that?"

Wash opened his mouth to reply, but my desk phone rang loudly, cutting him off. Hale's number glowed on the screen.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Eleven, I'm in the office. I noticed you were signed in as well, and that Wash already has arrived. I'm going to talk to you early. Please come at once."

"Yes, sir," I replied.

I left Wash standing at the doorway and started walking toward Hale's office. I had a terrible feeling about this. Hale had mentioned Wash… but there was no way we would be put on the same team. No damn way. Hale knew better than that.

I grimaced, remembering Hale's conversation with me after the ball. Wash and I couldn't work together. That much was obvious.

Reaching Hale's office, I took a deep breath, my stomach twisting tightly in knots. I shouldn't have been nervous about this, but something kept nagging at the back of my mind. Something told me I wouldn't like what I was about to hear…

* * *

><p>(Welcome to Season 2 of <em>After the Recon!<em> I will now be updating on a weekly basis, but please note: Sometimes I will update _After the Recon II_, but sometimes I'll update _Before the Recon_.

_This is for a purpose._

Let me pause and wait for that to sink in for a moment.

…

Okay, now that that's done, I'm so happy to be back! I missed all of you!

-Stella)


	2. Snap, Crackle, Pop, Part V

I walked into Hale's office without another moment's hesitation. He looked up at me, visibly relieved at my arrival.

"I'm glad you're early," he said, rearranging some papers on his desk marked _CLASSIFIED_. "We need to get this mission going as soon as possible."

"What's going on, then?"

"Our intel recently received a radio transmission from near Blood Gulch. We are getting signals from a great number of AIs in the area—we know this is where they escaped after they left the UNSC ball. We don't understand what these signals mean, or why Command would have the ability to intercept them, but we do know that the AI activity is extremely prominent."

"You—you mean there _are_ actual AIs in the area?" Sheila hadn't been malfunctioning then. She was right. And the others… what about the others…?

"Yes. Many. However, the transmissions are incomplete and we do not know their exact location, nor do we know how many AIs there are. I couldn't speak to you about this while you were at Blood Gulch; I would have needed to use your radio, and I didn't want to risk any of the AIs overhearing me. I see now that they were interfering with your technology. Contacting you was a real hassle." He paused. "How did you finally reach me?"

"One of the soldiers on Blood Gulch is skilled with robotics. He did something—uh, with different frequencies, I think—and fixed the radio. I don't know how long it'll last though."

"Very well. Between our communication and your technology problems, we definitely know that AIs are in the area. Eleven… this is our chance. We must act now."

"What do you mean?"

"We will be sending a small team to collect the AIs once and for all. Recovery One should have taken care of them, but, as we can see, the mission was a failure. We need no more accidents like that or the UNSC formal.

"For the job, Command and the CIA have chosen you and Agent Washington."

_Oh, son of a…_

"Sir, I really must object," I said quickly. "I don't think Washington's present state of mind is stable enough to undertake—"

"Eleven," Hale interrupted sharply. "You know as well as I that Washington is the ideal man for this job. He will be going for exactly the same reason he was chosen for Recovery One and the UNSC formal—he will not steal the AIs for himself, and he has the most experience with… unstable technology."

I was silent, but Hale seemed to know what I was thinking.

"I do not want to have to repeat my previous talk with you," he continued. "I don't want to hear reports of your not being able to work together. No getting drunk, no dramatic cat fights. Those will only make your mission stressful and potentially unsuccessful."

Again, I said nothing, and Hale sighed.

"I said Washington was the best man for the job… and _you_ are the best woman," Hale said, watching me closely. "You are one of the few CIA Agents who have already fought and dealt with the AIs. Not only that, but… you are the only Agent who became so involved in Project Freelancer."

At this, I tensed and clutched at the right side of my rib cage instinctively. Hale's eyes flicked downward at my hand and he sighed.

"Eleven…" he began. "I know what happened was difficult on you. Your… catastrophe… was a real blow to the entire CIA. But… that is exactly why I need you now."

I was quiet.

"A long time ago, I told you that you were a clumsy and imperfect rookie," Hale continued softly. "Now, I still believe that you are clumsy and imperfect, but I _need_ you for this mission, and we both know why."

I watched the sun slowly rising out of the window, feeling the dread of entering a dark past I had spent the last portion of my life trying to avoid.

Trying to clean up.

I slowly ran my hand down my rib cage, trying and failing to feel my deformity through the armor.

"Fine. I'm in."

* * *

><p>The next morning, Wash and I prepared to leave. Under Hale's watchful eye, we didn't speak much to each other—we both knew that any conversation we had would probably end up in some sort of argument—so we basically avoided each other as much as possible. I did not want to get in trouble with Hale again before the mission even started. Besides, I was in no mood to deal with Wash's douchebag tendencies as of late. His raunchy advances at the UNSC formal had pissed me off enough.<p>

Hale arranged for us to take a jet—and not a portal—in order to take more supplies to Blood Gulch. Not knowing exactly how many AIs we were dealing with (or how they were travelling around) we packed up myriad weapons and electronics. We needed to brace ourselves for the worst.

As we prepared to leave, I ran through our plan in my mind… which wasn't really a plan at all. Wash and I would head back to Blood Gulch and camp there while awaiting further instruction from Command. Hale had informed us that since we didn't have enough information about the AI activity, we would scout the canyon and wait for further instruction.

_Waiting. Ugh._ I couldn't stand waiting. Who knew how long getting better transmissions would take? I brought this up to my superior, but he insisted that any travelling around the planet was strictly prohibited until they gave us the exact coordinates of the AIs.

The only good thing that would come from all this was that I would be back in Blood Gulch. I didn't want to show my emotions regarding this, but, inside, I was elated to be going back… for some very red and very blue reasons. I would be seeing them again. I was extremely tempted to radio the Blood Gulchers and inform them of my arrival, but Hale had insisted that we make no contact through radio until he contacted us and gave us the all-clear. It was too dangerous.

Because I hadn't faced _any _danger with the Blood Gulchers up to this point.


	3. Snap, Crackle, Pop, Part VI

I climbed up onto the ship, anxious to depart. The sooner we left, the sooner the plane ride would be over. The last thing I wanted to do was to be trapped in one small cockpit with that dickhead for hours on end. The very thought of it made me cringe.

As the ship left headquarters, I took as much time as I possibly could in the store room, checking to make sure we had packed all the weapons on the supply list. We had. Even after I had triple checked the list.

We soon left Earth's atmosphere, and my heart sank. I knew Wash would need my help in the cockpit now until we reached a safe location to put the ship on autopilot. It could take hours until Command gave us the go-ahead to stop flying manually. _Son of a bitch._

I entered the cockpit, and Wash was busy speaking into his headset. I sat down at the empty seat beside him, placing my headphones on as well and beginning to coordinate my side of the flight controls.

"…Exited Earth's atmosphere," Wash was saying to Command. "Steering controls all functional. Engine capacity at 100%. Oxygen levels stable, and all supplies…?" He looked over at me questioningly.

"All present and accounted for," I finished.

"Affirmative, Agents Washington and Eleven," Command responded. "Keep on your course, and we will contact you when it is safe to activate autopilot. Over and out."

The line went dead, and Wash and I removed our headsets for the time being. He stretched and leaned back into his seat, yawning widely. "It's about time you got back to the cockpit. Took you forever to count all our shit."

"Yeah, well, I just wanted to make sure we had everything. We really don't have any idea what we're getting into."

"I won't deny that," he said. He relaxed his muscles from the stretch. "Damn. I am not looking forward to this mission."

I glanced at him briefly before turning back to my controls. "I… I know. You and AIs… don't work well together."

"Tell me about it," he growled.

"No offense, but… I really can't believe they chose you for this."

Wash glared at me. I had struck a nerve. "You know why they did?" he spat angrily. "Because they think I'm a damn expert. Apparently, I'm automatically the go-to guy for AI problems because of my own past issues! They think I know everything there is to know about AIs just because—because—"

His voice faltered.

"And you!" he continued, glancing at me sharply. "You're the last person I should be paired up with! Don't they get it? When you're around, bad shit happens to me!"

"Oh, so everything is my fault now?" I asked. "That had nothing to do with me. It was just… just bad luck!"

"Well, for this mission, a bad luck charm isn't a good thing to have. Think about it. The UNSC formal… Hale almost died because of me. And you were there. And… before that… well, you know…"

Wash's voice trailed off, and there there was a brief silence in which we steered the plane moodily.

"The sooner we get to Blood Gulch, the better," I muttered.

"What," Wash said, irritated again. "Can't stand the presence of your half-crazed ex?"

"Excuse me?" I said to him. "Are you joking? Why would I have any reason to _want_ to be around you?"

Wash said nothing, messing with the controls.

"I want to call them," I thought aloud. "I need to make sure the Blood Gulchers are all right."

"You are so damn focused on those guys," the ex-Freelancer commented icily.

I blushed slightly, shrugging.

He watched me closely, his face darkening at my lack of reaction. "…You banged one of them, didn't you?"

"Wash!" I gasped, outraged. _"Why would you think that?"_

Wash's eyebrows raised. "You're not denying it, I see."

"I did _not _sleep with any of them!" I snarled. "See, this is exactly why we can't work together. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Maybe I just think you're getting too attached to those guys… literally."

I stared. "What—what happened to you?" I asked him. He ignored me, continuing his steering of the ship. "What happened to the Wash I used to know? Now you're a complete douchebag. Ever since Project Freelancer—and we—ended, you haven't stopped being an asshole to me _once_. And then, to put the cherry on top, you decided to be a pervert at the UNSC formal! What the hell was that about? A completely new tactic to piss me off?"

I saw a flicker of some sort of emotion I couldn't read flash across his face. However, as soon as I had seen it, his expression changed to one of contempt. "Wha—what," he said abrasively, avoiding eye contact with me. "You didn't expect me to have any side effects?You expected me to be the same person after having my _mind torn to pieces?_ After everything that happened with _you?_"

My eyes widened.

"This… this goes beyond that," I said quietly. I was nervous. This was the first time we had talked about what had happened… ever.

"You don't know that," Wash responded, gritting his teeth. "You don't know a thing. Things—things aren't that simple."

I glared at him. "Oh, all right. Not that simple. What an amazing explanation."

"My explanation is better than your lame attempt at pretending you didn't give one of those guys a blowj—"

"WASH!" I screamed, standing up suddenly. "You dick. You absolute, insufferable _dickhead._ I never should have agreed to this mission. I… _I hate you!"_

I stormed out of the cockpit, enraged. Just before closing the door leading to the hallway, I looked back at Wash. His eyes were locked on the chair I had been sitting in, staring wide and unblinking. His face was frozen in an expression of surprise… and hurt?

I slammed the door, stalking off to my cabin room. Wash was just going to have to fly the damned plane by himself until Command gave him the go-ahead to put it on autopilot. He'd manage.

Too infuriated to stand still, I began pacing around my small room.

What had happened to the Wash I knew so long ago? Before we had… ended… he had been such a decent guy. Even a goodie-goodie at times. His moral compass had been infallible. Now… with everything that had happened… he had changed. He was different. Now, Wash was just this tough hardass. No feelings, no care about anyone except himself.

That wasn't the way things used to be.

It wasn't the sarcasm. I was used to that. Back when he and I had been… happy… he had used his flirty wit to make me laugh for hours. Now, his sarcasm was stained with a bite of derision.

There was no doubt about it. Wash had turned into an absolute dickhead. The transition from gentleman to asshole had been instantaneous.

I knew that the catastrophe had something to do with it. That much was obvious. Yet… there was something else at play here. I was sure of it. Why had his expression of scorn flickered like that during our conversation? What was he hiding?

I suddenly felt a slight jolt in the ship as the engines adjusted—we had just switched to autopilot.

I sighed. We still had such a long way to go.

In every sense of the phrase.


	4. Snap, Crackle, Pop, Part VII

The hours passed. I busied myself by attending to superfluous chores around the ship—random maintenance, cleaning the weapons, and radio inspections. Anything to keep myself distracted. Sometimes, I just hated _thinking._

With nothing else to do, I grabbed a large pile of laundry I needed to take care of before we arrived at Blood Gulch. I had grabbed a few more sets of the Kevlar suits I used beneath my armor. I must have forgotten to wash them because, frankly, they reeked.

As I headed down the hallway to the ship's small laundry room, I heard a frustrated growl and a soft thump coming from a doorway on the left. The door was ajar. I slowed my walk to a tiptoe and peered quietly inside the room. _Damn. I'm such a spy._

It was Wash's temporary bedroom. He had sat down at a desk, doubled over in the chair, grasping his head in his hands. His helmet lay on the nearby bed… but, contrary to what I expected, his face was not that of physical pain; it was of… something else.

His eyebrows were knitted together, a sharp frown creasing his forehead. A vein throbbed in his neck, and his jaw was clenched tightly closed. His hands were clasped tightly around his head, winding through his hair.

I pressed as closely as I dared to the doorway, but, remembering what had happened during my last eavesdropping session, I stayed ready to pounce away from the door and run. He sighed heavily into his hands, relaxing his muscles and closing his eyes tightly.

"How… _God._ How much longer can I keep this up?"

He only spoke one sentence—that single question. He spoke not with that tone of contempt I was so used to as of late. He sounded aggravated, but… this was different. His frustration was permeated with a tone that sounded almost of regret.

What on earth was he talking about?

I didn't stay to find out. Wash had stood up and was now removing his armor; he probably wanted to change into a fresh under-armor suit before we arrived. I hurried down to the laundry room and cleaned my clothing quickly, returning to my own room as fast as possible.

This wasn't normal. I just couldn't put my finger on an explanation for this behavior. Was Wash still struggling to keep his composure after… after Epsilon? After all this time, was his mind still stable?

Something told me this wasn't the case… well, it wasn't the entire story, anyway. I knew this much: Wash was hiding something. Whether it had to do with Project Freelancer or not, I had no idea.

…But there was no way in hell I was going to ask. I did not want to be reminded of that disaster of a mission. Not now.

* * *

><p>Back in the cockpit, Wash and I drove quietly. Command had contacted us and required us to turn off autopilot mode. Unfortunately, we had to drive the ship together again. On the plus side, however, this also meant we were almost at Blood Gulch.<p>

Tension still saturated the air between us; my cold attitude toward him hadn't changed. In exchange, his furrowed brow and icy demeanor continued as well as we slowly descended back into Blood Gulch. We only said the necessities to each other; we knew that any conversation that strayed from the mission would surely lead to another fight.

"Agents Washington and Eleven, prepare for landing," Command said to us through our headsets. So far, our technology had not been acting up. We had set all of the radios to a different frequency than those at Blood Gulch so the AIs couldn't interfere with them. So far, so good. "You are approaching the planet's atmosphere."

"The engine energy balance control is right there," Wash said to me, pointing at my side of the controls. His tone was cool and reserved. He was restraining himself from adding in any insults.

"Thanks," I said calmly, trying my hardest not to give my voice any signs of sarcasm. I had a hard time being professional myself.

We approached Blood Gulch and I felt the familiar sensation of arriving back onto a planet. I smiled in spite of myself, thinking of the Reds and Blues.

_It won't be long now._

* * *

><p>Wash and I finally arrived at Blood Gulch. As per Hale's instructions, we were to stay here until he gave us further instructions. We just needed to wait for him to give us more information on the location of the AIs, their means of transport, and their number.<p>

As we both approached Blue base, I suddenly had an extremely uneasy feeling about all this. For some reason, I had an inkling Wash and Tucker wouldn't get along too well…

"Hey, Wash," I said to him, pretending to be casual. It was so hard not to start each sentence with slight. _Professional. Just be professional_. "How about, so that we can cover more area, you stay over at Red base and I take Blue?"

Wash frowned, noticing my tone of voice. He knew I was still upset at him. "Why would we do that? We need to be in the same building just in case something happens with these AIs and we have to take immediate action."

"Well, having two bases covered would be a lot better than just having one defense."

"That doesn't matter. We can use Red base if we need to later. You're such _close friends_ with them anyway." I bit my lip, repressing my sarcastic comeback. "Besides, the broken tank is at Blue base and I think we both need to be there just in case it picks up anything important. We both need to stay there."

I fell silent. The asshole's logic was unwavering. I thought hard, trying to think of any way to get Wash away from—

"Holy shit! Eleven!"

Tucker careened out of the base and gripped me in a tight hug. I laughed breathily, hugging him back. Wash watched us suspiciously.

"I guess you can't get rid of me that easily, can you?" I asked cheekily as he let go.

"I guess not! Damn, Ells." He nudged me slyly. "You just can't stay away from us."

Wash's frown deepened as Tucker turned to go and inform the other Blues of our arrival. I avoided the gray soldier's gaze.

"_He_ calls you 'Ells'?" Wash asked suspiciously.

"What?" I asked, gulping. "It's just a stupid nickname."

"_Just a stupid nickname?" _Wash sputtered. "You know damn well it's not just a—"

"Eleven!" called Church from the base. We were almost at its doorway. "You're back already? Jesus, that was fast! What were you—" He stopped as the other Blues joined him and we entered the base. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?" He asked Washington.

"It's a mission, Einstein," Wash said moodily. "We have to stay here until we get clearance from Command to check out the AI situation. We're not on vacation."

Church rolled his eyes as Washington walked past, heading toward an extra bedroom.

The Blues turned to me, confused. "AI situation?" Tucker asked apprehensively. "What is he talking about?"

I sighed and explained to them what Hale had told me. Their eyes widened as they realized just how much trouble we were in—and, with the minimal information we knew, just how defenseless we were to the AIs' antics.

* * *

><p>(( Happy 1111/11! Don't forget to make a wish!

In honor of our CIA Agent's special day, I'm planning an extra surprise for all of you; unfortunately, it probably won't be posted until next week. Keep an eye out!

-Stella ))


	5. Not on Vacation, Part I

"Okay, let me get this straight," Tucker said. He, Church and Caboose were all following me as I headed back to my room, helping to carry some of my things. "Your boss had to drag you from Blood Gulch all the way back to headquarters to tell you that he thinks you should _come right back?"_

"I already explained this," I said, exasperated. "We couldn't communicate through the radios or any technology. There was too high a risk of the AIs interfering and listening in on the conversation."

"This is some bullshit, Ells. How are we supposed to defend ourselves if no one knows where the AIs are located, how many there are, or how they're getting around? All we know is that they've been messing with all our technology shit."

"That's as much as anyone knows right now," I said. "That's why we're back. We just need to wait until Command and the CIA find out enough about the AIs to either tell us how to capture them or let us investigate further. Right now, though… it's just a waiting game."

"A waiting game?" Church replied darkly. "More like a 'sit-around-and-try-not-to-get-killed' game."

"Well, it's the best we could do," I said, opening the door to my room. Nothing had been touched, to my surprise. It was still _my room_. I smiled. "Besides, I didn't even get to the worst part of all of this yet," I said, turning to them as they placed some of my bags on the floor.

"What's that?" Church asked.

I smirked. "You're forced to have me around for who knows how much longer."

They laughed. "Yeah, what a shame. We were just so happy that you were finally gone. Couldn't stand your face."

"You know what the real shame is, though?" Tucker asked seriously, his eyes flickering in the direction of the bedroom down the hall. "Wash is here. What the hell is up with him anyway?"

"What do you mean? Hasn't he always acted this way?" I asked.

"Well, yeah, he's always been a cockbite," Church said. "Like the sarcasm and shit. But he wasn't really ever moody. Like in a shitty mood in general."

"Yeah," Tucker added. "He would get annoyed with us and stuff, but he'd just roll his eyes, add in some sort of insult, and move on. What's up with him? PMS?"

I shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. He's been a douchebag to me ever since... well, ever since Project Freelancer. I don't know why he's so pissy lately."

Hmm. The Blues had noticed Wash's odd behavior too. I wasn't just imagining things.

* * *

><p>After a nice visit with the Reds—Donut and I gossiped while Sarge bossed Simmons around and Grif napped—I returned to Blue base. The Blues and I were going to watch a movie, and, though I extended an invitation to the Reds, Sarge busted Donut's excited plans in an instant. He claimed that they had spent enough time with their enemies and needed to get back to their plans to kill them.<p>

Whatever.

I walked into the Blue base and headed toward the living room. Church was popping one of the _Indiana Jones_ movies into the DVD player while Caboose burned popcorn in the kitchen. Again.

I plopped on the couch beside Tucker as we cleared the smoke from the kitchen and got the movie rolling. He casually put an arm around me when we turned out the lights, scooting closer to me. I blushed slightly, but leaned against him a bit as well.

"Where is Agent Washingtub?" Caboose asked as he brought a rather blackened bowl of popcorn into the living room. "He is missing the movie!"

"I don't know that he wants to join us, Caboose," I said. "He's not really—"

"What the hell is happening?" asked Wash urgently, striding quickly into the living room. "Is there a fire? There's smoke—"

He stopped as he saw Caboose with his singed popcorn.

"I should have known," he said, rolling his eyes. "I should know by now that every alarm is a false alarm. Idiots." He crossed his arms irritably, glaring at Caboose.

"Come on, dude," Church said to him, annoyed. "Stop bitching already and lighten up. You're stuck here with us, so there' s no use complaining about it. Why don't you just join us for the movie?"

Wash saw what we were watching, hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. "Well, I guess I don't see why no—"

He stopped as his eyes fell on me and Tucker. An unmistakable darkness spread across his face.

"You know what? No. I'm not going to watch," he growled. "You all have _fun_ together."

Without another word, he turned on his heel and left. We stared for a moment at the space where he had been standing and then gazed at each other questioningly.

"What the hell?" Church asked, confusion evident on his face. I felt Tucker's arm tighten slightly around my shoulders.

I sighed. "This is going to be a long mission, guys."

"Dude, he wasn't even acting this way when we were at the UNSC dance thing," Tucker commented. "Yeah, he was being sort of a dick, but it wasn't like he was in a bad mood himself."

"Oh yeah, no big deal," I replied sarcastically. "He was only trying to get into my pants."

Church chuckled. "Well, that ended up coming in handy for us, didn't it? Thank God he had all those extra suits in the jet."

I shrugged. "True."

We continued watching the movie, but I wasn't really paying attention. My thoughts were all scattered and confused. I tried to clear my mind—get my thoughts on anything but the gray soldier—but he was just being so damn _weird_. I just couldn't comprehend why he was acting so out of character. I could handle his being rude to me. I could handle our fights. Hell, I could handle the abnormal pervy Wash, and even the weird "recovering-from-Epsilon" Wash. But… _moody_ Wash?

This just added another complicated layer to my already confused mind. I sighed heavily without thinking about it, and Tucker looked over at me worriedly. I smiled at him, hoping he wouldn't see that something was bothering me. He watched me closely, but didn't say anything. He only gave my arm a quick squeeze.

_I wonder how long it'll take for Command to give us the all-clear._

_Because **nothing** is clear right now._

* * *

><p>( Well, here's your surprise, everyone. It's a bit late, and it's actually kind of lame, but I posted some quick sketches. You can see them either on Eleven's blog:<p>

ask-agent-eleven[dot]tumblr[dot]com

Or on my DeviantArt account:

SkyGirl211[dot]deviantart[dot]com

Again, they're nothing special. Just a little extra something to celebrate 11/11/11. Until next week! :]

-Stella )


	6. Not on Vacation, Part II

Taking a deep breath, I braced myself. "All right, guys, time to go," I called through the base.

Tucker popped his head around the corner confusedly. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to dinner. Come on."

"Dinner?" Church asked, walking out from his bedroom. "Why—"

"We're going to do Thanksgiving properly," I said determinedly. "Caboose is already there. So let's go."

"Where exactly is 'there,' may I ask?" Tucker replied.

I looked at him disparagingly. "Who else do you think has the talent—or the patience—to cook Thanksgiving dinner around here?"

"No damn way," Church huffed. "We are _not _going over to Red base again. We're supposed to be at war here!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Fine. I'm going over there and enjoying Donut's whole roast turkey by myself, then."

The Blues frowned as I headed toward the entrance. I smiled with my back to them.

_3… 2… 1…_

"Okay, okay, I give. I haven't had a decent meal in way too long. I'm coming." Tucker grabbed his helmet and headed toward the door, catching up with me. Church sighed and followed him too.

As we started to leave, Church stopped. "You gonna ask Wash if he wants to come?"

I hesitated. Wash wasn't exactly in a grumpy mood anymore, but his abrasiveness had increased exponentially. I had never heard so much sarcasm in my life.

…And coming from me, that was saying something.

Most of his rudeness came from snide comments directed toward me. I was used to that—I had been ever since the end of Project Freelancer. They just came in higher quantities, especially if I were within five feet of Tucker.

I sighed. I figured that we might as well invite him, because I certainly wasn't going to bother bringing food back for him.

I left the Blues at the entrance and made my way toward Wash's room, knocking lightly on the door.

"Yes?"

"Wash, we're going to have Thanksgiving with the Reds. I'm not bringing you back anything, so if you're going to eat tonight, you'll have to come."

I heard Wash get up and walk through the room. He opened the door and rolled his eyes as he saw me.

"What, is carrying a plate of food across Blood Gulch to difficult for you?"

"Yeah," I growled. "Difficult because I'll be too tempted to spit in the turkey before giving it to you."

"Oh, I'm flattered. Really," Wash replied coarsely. "Ugh, fine. I'll come."

* * *

><p>When I had met back up with the Reds the day we arrived back at Blood Gulch, I hadn't even thought to mention Wash. Unfortunately, this caused a bit of a shock to the team. Sarge was absolutely beside himself with fury, thinking the Blues were suddenly up by another man. I had to yell over his furious death threats to get him to understand that Wash was working with me and not them, but it wasn't until Simmons helped to restrain him that he calmed down and stopped trying to douse Wash with the mashed potatoes. Even Donut was acting extremely cold toward the gray soldier—and for good reason.<p>

"If you're going to throw food on him, don't waste the mashed potatoes. I used the last of the whole milk on them!" Donut said grumpily as he tossed a rather extravagant salad. "At least chuck the dinner rolls at him. Those burned, so they're more like hockey pucks now anyway."

I stifled a laugh as Wash glanced over at the bread rolls.

"Looks like someone's upset at you for shooting him," Church smirked.

Wash sighed and turned to Donut. "Okay, okay. Donut, I'm sorry for shooting you, all right?"

Donut's annoyed frown lessened a bit. He wouldn't stay mad for long. It wasn't his personality.

"It's all right," he replied, taking another rack of less-burnt dinner rolls from the oven. "Just… don't do it again. I don't really appreciate getting killed."

"I wouldn't either," Wash consented.

Donut lightened up considerably after that. He calmed down, and the rest of the Reds slowly followed. Once dinner was well under way—and each of the Blood Gulchers had a couple drinks—the mood became much more content. Even Wash refrained from his insult-Eleven-just-to-be-a-douchebag sarcasm.

Not only did the conversation start to flow easily because of the liquor, but the food put everyone in better spirits. Donut had absolutely outdone himself. It was his best meal yet.

I was surprised—we had no more problems. Sarge finally believed that Wash wasn't still working with the Blues, and Wash seemed to be paying special attention to Donut's cooking, complimenting it at every opportunity. Frankly, I couldn't tell whether he really felt badly for shooting Donut, he was just trying to be professional (for once), or the drinks were getting to him. Or all three.

Once the meal ended, we helped Donut do the dishes (with much complaining from Grif's end) and played a couple rounds of cards. However, Caboose almost fell on top of the deck in his attempt not to fall asleep, so the Blues decided to call it an early night and head home.

I wasn't ready to go back. Wash was tipsy and in a good mood, so I didn't want to be the one to interrupt that—I knew that if we started talking, he would inevitably become all irritable and rude again.

I decided to spend the night with the Reds. Besides, I owed Donut a slumber party. As the Blues left (Tucker planted a slightly drunk and sloppy kiss on my cheek before heading out), I stayed behind and helped Donut with the last of the dishes. We packed up the last of the turkey in a Tupperware, and Donut offered to give it to the Blues for sandwiches the next day. I tried to radio the Blues to ask if they wanted the leftovers, but none of them answered. Not even Wash. I shrugged and decided to take the food back to Blue base the next day anyway. They were probably asleep and wouldn't mind some extra turkey anyway.

We finished cleaning, and Donut was thoroughly excited we were finally having our sleepover; he immediately started making a fresh pot of tea.

Sarge watched us prepare our sleeping area disapprovingly, muttering under his breath about how unprofessionally we were behaving. Grif and Simmons were still busy with the cards and didn't pay us much attention, so we did get a little bit of peace and quiet. While the water was boiling, we dragged all the blankets from Donut's room to the main living room, setting up a tent as if we were about ten years old.

Okay, I was enjoying myself. I hadn't done this in years.

Once we had set up a respectable tent with the couches and various brooms as stakes, Donut and I grabbed our tea and third slices of pumpkin pie, bringing an extra flashlight with us beneath the blankets.

"So…" Donut began once we were settled in, a mischievous look in his eye. "You have a bit of explaining to do."

I frowned, biting into my pie. "What do you mean?"

Donut smiled knowingly. "Come on, Ells. You know what I'm talking about. There's something serious going on between you two."

Shit. He'd been watching Tucker. My face reddened.

"Okay, listen, we… I don't know what's going on. That kiss—he shouldn't have done that. Tucker—"

"Tucker?" asked Donut confusedly. "I wasn't surprised that he did that! He talks about kissing girls all the time. Besides, he'd had a few too many drinks. I was talking about Wash!"

I stopped. "…Wash?"

"Oh, please. Don't give me that innocent look. You said you'd dated him before. Something's happened since then. I can tell."

"How did you know?"

"He flat out ignored you the whole damn night. That's not normal. Remember the formal, when he kept trying to get into your pants? Stuff like that doesn't change unless something prompts it to."

"Jesus, Donut, you sound like an article out of Cosmo."

Donut grinned. "Well, where do you think I get all my great Pilates exercises?"

I sighed. "I don't know what's up with him," I said. "I really don't. I mean… you don't know the whole story about us, do you?"

"Only what you've told me. All you said was that he was your psychotic ex."

"Yeah, well, he is. Ever since we broke up, he's been a complete asshole to me. He takes any chance to insult me. At the UNSC formal, he then did something new—the whole nasty pervert deal. I don't know what was up with that, but we're just always getting into fights. No matter how professional I try to be, he always has to do something to piss me off."

Donut took a sip of his tea. "Do you know why?"

"I have no idea, but—"

I stopped, hearing a strange noise. It was too far away to make out properly, but, from what I could hear, it sounded somewhat like a scratchy echo. As if the sound were coming from a far distance.

"Did you hear that?" I whispered. Donut nodded, and we both listened quietly. The sound got louder, popped jerkily, and then died abruptly.

Silence.

"Guys, did you just hear that?" Simmons asked, striding into the room. I lifted the flap of our homemade tent and glanced worriedly at the maroon soldier.

"Yeah," Donut replied. Sarge walked into the room followed closely by Grif. "What do you think it was?"

"I… I'm not sure," I said. "I've never heard a sound like that before. Do you think it came from Blue base?"

"Let's not get our hopes up just yet…" Sarge muttered.

We waited in silence for the strange noise to return, but nothing more happened.

Grif yawned widely. "If it were anything bad, the Blues probably would have radioed us about it. Besides, if they're dead, that's one less thing we have to do, right? No offense, Eleven."

I shrugged. For once, the orange soldier was probably right. If anything had happened, the Blues would have contacted us somehow.

Donut and I returned to our tent. I checked my radio multiple times, but none of the Blues had tried to say anything to me.

"Don't worry, Ells," Donut said as I picked at my unfinished slice of pie. "They would have contacted us if something had happened. I'm sure nothing's wrong."


	7. Not on Vacation, Part III

"Reds! Eleven! _Get the damn door!"_

I jerked awake, and it took a moment for me to realize where I was. I had fallen asleep beside Donut beneath our little tent, and someone was pounding urgently at the Red base's door.

"Dammit, open up already! We need you!"

I left the tent and stood up just in time to see Sarge stumble into view and open the door still bleary-eyed as well.

"What in Sam hill—"

"Sarge!" Church cried. "Come on! We need your asses over at Blue base _right now!"_

Within minutes, we were changed and armed and followed Church out of the base.

"If this is some low-down, dirty trick to drag us out into the open…" Sarge grumbled suspiciously.

"No, no!" Church said exasperatedly. "There's just been—oh, God. Just hurry up already. We need to get back there before anything else happens!"

Church refused to say another word until we approached Blue base. I saw the scene and gasped, running worriedly ahead of the others.

Sheila was smoking, her entire dashboard covered in black silt. Multiple parts of her looked singed, and none of her lights were on. She looked… dead. The grass around her was burnt as well, and I could smell something that resembled melted rubber.

Caboose sat on the ground not far from Sheila, pleading with her to turn back on. He had his helmet off, and his hair was standing on end, singed at the tips. Tucker sat cross-legged, examining his armor shakily, while Wash was on one knee with this head in his hands.

"Are you all right?" I squeaked, kneeling beside Tucker and Wash.

"We're okay, Ells," replied Tucker faintly. Wash flashed a quick glare at him. "We just… shit. Last night was just bad."

"What the hell happened here?" Sarge asked gruffly, staring at the wreckage. "Your vehicle's completely shot!"

Church looked at Sheila worriedly. "We… we were attacked last night."

"What?" yelped Grif, looking around at the nearby woods anxiously. "What attacked you?"

"The AIs," Church said stonily. I stared.

"That… that's impossible!"

"Is it?" he replied. "Eleven, I think I would know."

"What did they do?"

"Follow me," he said, leading me and the Reds to Sheila. He opened up the door to the driver's seat and told us to peer inside. A rather large dial on her dashboard had exploded, causing the black shit to mould onto the windows.

"That's her AI detector," Church continued, pointing at the exploded dial. "Last night, it started popping and making these loud-ass scraping noises. We all rushed out to see what was going on, but we couldn't do anything! Sheila just kept telling us shit like, 'They're here! They're doing this! They're coming!' It was like a thousand channels of static all at the same time. And it just got louder and louder… until the dash popped, shorting Sheila out completely.

"Then…" Church gulped. "It was our turn. The AIs used what was left of Sheila's energy to electrocute us, sending these nasty beams of voltage to our bodies. Wash, Tucker and Caboose all were knocked unconscious instantly, but of course I can't be. Instead, the electricity just knocked out my ability to move and talk… it lasted the whole night. I literally recovered about ten minutes before I came to get you—I had to wake up the others and make sure they were okay before coming to find you."

"Holy mother of God," Simmons whispered. "How—why?"

Church glanced back over at Sheila. "The AIs are planning something. I don't know what it is right now, but they damn well are doing something. They made her AI detector go haywire to the extent that it shorted out—my guess is that was on purpose. They don't want to be detected."

"But… but why would they electrocute you guys?"

"Well… we're an inconvenience, I guess," Church said.

"You are?" I cried, incredulous. "You're an AI too!"

Church shrugged. "Yeah, and I'm sure they know that. I actually have no idea why they attacked me as well. I'm… I'm like one of them."

"Maybe they're biding their time," Wash said quietly. He had stood up and joined our group, still rubbing his temple furiously. "There's no reason why they wouldn't want to come in contact with you, Church. I'm sure they want to talk to you, but… just not yet. They're planning something else first."

Church nodded as Tucker joined us. Caboose was still trying to console the unresponsive tank.

"So… the AIs don't want to be found or tracked, but they didn't kill you. And they didn't try to control you. I wonder why?" I wondered aloud.

"Well, they _couldn't_ control us," Tucker piped in. He was still shaking slightly. "We turned our radios off right after we realized why Sheila was flipping out. That's why we couldn't call you. We didn't want to risk getting infected."

A million unanswered questions still swam through my mind. We had gained no information at all. We had just been attacked. We were sitting ducks.

"Command has to have more information," I said, trying to convince myself that this was true. "They have to know more by now."

I reached down to grab my radio, but Wash gripped around my wrist tightly. "That can't be a good idea. Not after what just happened."

"Wash, the calls to Command are on a completely different frequency, remember?" I told him irritably. "The AIs don't have access to our channel."

"How can you be sure though?" asked Donut. "They were obviously powerful enough to do shit like this. How do you know that they won't jump through a different frequency too?"

"Would you rather sit here vulnerably while the AIs plan their next attack?" I asked them sharply.

"What if they jump into your head?" voiced Simmons worriedly.

"They can't get through to our frequency, I already told you!" I responded, annoyed. "We need to take the risk. Otherwise, we'll never be able to get any word from Command at all!"

They were silent for a moment, listening to Caboose's devastated moans.

"It's the only option," Church said quietly. "We do need any information or help Command can send us. We need to do this."

"Church, can't you call them?" Grif asked. "You're not human, so they can't possess you, right? You're one of them, like you said."

"Obviously they can, dipshit," Simmons responded. "They did at that UNSC dance, remember?"

"Yeah…" Church said. "I have a physical body and an AI spot, so they can control me too if they want to now. I don't know. They're stronger. And I can't call Command. My radio doesn't have the special channel."

"But mine does."

We stopped and looked at Wash. He still held my wrist tightly and was staring determinedly at my radio. "Eleven, you've only had an AI possess you once, and that wasn't even the full brunt of it. It was only through an earpiece. It's completely different when they take over your entire suit of armor. I'll make the call."

"Wash, you can't afford to have another AI infect your armor!" I responded, utterly bewildered. "You know that! What—what happened last time—"

"_Won't happen again_," he finished firmly. "Things have changed, Eleven. I already told you this. I've had the most experience with AIs."

"…Which is exactly why you _shouldn't_ make the call," Church said to Wash stridently. Wash looked over at Church, confused.

"What?"

"You heard me. Think about it, Wash. Why did they go for you to get to the UNSC formal? Because they already knew that you'd had a bad experience with AIs. That you were easy to control. If given the choice between having you and Eleven infected, I have to choose Eleven, however heartless it may sound. She'll be much easier to control because they don't know how her mind works as much as they do yours."

"I won't let this happen!" Wash growled, fuming.

I raised an eyebrow, confused at Wash's reaction. Why the hell—

"Sorry, son, but I think we all agree with Church here," Sarge admitted. "Dirty Blue's actually got a point."

The other Reds nodded, as did Tucker.

"I think she should be the one to make the decision, though," Donut added. They all looked at me.

"Um, I was the one who suggested the idea to begin with, Einstein," I smirked as Wash let go of my wrist, completely irritated that he had been beaten. "Then all of you freaked."

"Okay, let's just prepare for this," Church said. He instructed the boys to crowd around me just in case an AI attacked my mind. Tucker held on tightly to my right wrist while Church had my left—he gave me just enough leeway to use my radio. Donut held fast to my right leg while Grif gripped my left ankle. Simmons and Sarge stood beside Caboose (who had wandered over after giving up talking to Sheila) and the two Reds now held stun guns ready to knock me out at a moment's notice.

Wash stood behind me, and I could almost feel his tension. He was nervous about his. He had both hands on either side of my waist… and, maybe I was imagining it, but I could have sworn he tightened his hand slightly on the right side of my ribs.

I was completely stationary. If an AI were to enter my mind, the Reds and Blues would knock me out immediately. Despite all our precautions, I was still uneasy. We didn't know what the AIs were capable of, really.

Church gave me the go-ahead, and, after one large breath, I turned my radio on.


	8. Not on Vacation, Part IV

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

My channel was completely silent.

I tried multiple times to contact Hale, checking over and over that the radio was functional and on the correct frequency. It was dead. No Hale. No AIs.

I reported this to the others. They at last decided to give Wash a shot at contacting Command just in case the problem was just with my radio. We crowded around him—this time, I stood behind him, placing my hands on his shoulders—but he had the same response that I did. Complete stillness.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Donut said. "Nothing at all? That sucks!"

"Now we don't have any means of communication with anyone," I commented worriedly. "We can't turn on our own radios because the AIs might invade us, and now the connection to Command doesn't work either!"

The Reds and Blues were silent, and, for the first time ever, I felt completely helpless.

"Well," Wash said. "Let's see what Eleven and I have back at the ship. We'll start planning out our own strategy, because there is no way in hell we are going to get surprised like that again."

When we reached our ship—parked not too far away from Blue base—my heart sank. The AIs had attacked it as well, and its AI detector had suffered the same fate that Sheila's had. I had no idea whether the ship would fly or not, but we decided not to test it out for fear of causing further damage.

Worse news came with the supplies we had left in the ship. The AIs had managed to use the ship's power to destroy much of the weaponry we had brought with us. We salvaged as much as possible amid cursing, but we knew one thing for sure: the AIs were trying to make us as weak as possible.

Back at Blue base, we sorted through the rest of our weapons as Sarge and Simmons tried fixing whatever was broken—which, unfortunately, was much of what we had. We all tried to help, but not much could be done. Our supplies were degraded, I estimated, by more than seventy percent. I doubted Sarge and Simmons could fix the rest of everything we had. There was just too much damage.

"God damn it," Church muttered to me as we both tried to fix one of the AI storage units. It had almost been ripped in half. "They're definitely on to us. They're making us weak and they don't want to be tracked. But why are we a target?"

"It's because of you, I'm sure," I said. "They want you. But… I don't get why they didn't just try to capture you or something. What are they waiting for?"

Church shrugged. "I'm completely lost."

* * *

><p>That night, I appealed to Sarge to do the impossible.<p>

"Sarge…" I said slowly after dinner. He had complained thoroughly about having to stay for the meal, so I knew that this suggestion would be murder for him.

"What do ya want, missy?" he asked gruffly, sitting moodily in the corner of the kitchen with his shotgun as Donut and Caboose played a board game nearby. The others were watching a football game in the living room. Only Sarge had given any indication that he wanted to leave the base, and I knew why.

The other Reds were nervous. They didn't want to be alone on the other side of the canyon in case the AIs decided to go for them next. In their book, they didn't want to stand alone against the pieces of rogue technology _and_ the Blues. That was just too much. They wanted to _survive_ this mess.

"Well," I continued slowly. "Why… why don't you all spend the night here?"

Sarge glared at me. "Eleven! We spend enough time with these Blue bastards already! How could you even suggest such a thing?"

"Sarge, this is a completely different situation!" I protested. "The AIs are the enemy right now! You know that if the AIs decide to attack you over at Red base, you'll need help from me and Wash and the Blues. You can't face them alone. Why put yourself in that situation? If we don't work together, then we might as well admit defeat right now." I crossed my arms at him. "You want to do that? Surrender?"

Sarge's competitive nature took over, and he suddenly seemed torn by the decision. "I—well—of course not!" he huffed. "But, mark my words, Eleven, when this is through, those Blues are dead!"

I stopped myself from chuckling. _Of course…_

"Got it, Sarge," I said to him, keeping my face serious. "They're dead."

I popped my head into the other room where the boys were watching television.

"Reds, you're spending the night," I said to them. To my surprise, none of them complained. The Reds and Blues both looked pretty relieved.

"So… we're helping each other again," Simmons commented.

"That's pretty ironic…" muttered Grif.

"No it's not!" Wash retorted. "It would only be ironic if—"

Caboose's voice cut in as he called out from the kitchen. "I think it would be ironic if we were all made out of—"

"Guys!" I snapped. "Hello? We need to figure out where everyone's sleeping tonight, so can you all get up off your asses and help me get the extra blankets?"

"Where are we going to sleep?" Donut asked, walking in from the kitchen.

I shrugged. "Wherever you want, really. The couches here could probably hold two, maybe three of you. Then one of you can take my room. I don't really care about sleeping on the floor."

The Reds helped me collect the extra blankets hiding in the closet. We set them out on the couches in the living room, and Grif, Simmons, and Sarge claimed the available space. I insisted that Donut take my room. I wouldn't mind sleeping on the ground.

"You could always stay in _my_ room," Tucker said in a low voice, nudging me playfully. I rolled my eyes.

"Tonight's not your lucky night, dude," I replied.

Donut only acquiesced to sleeping in my room if he could take the floor. He even turned in early just to make sure that I couldn't steal the ground first. When I realized I just couldn't argue with him, I made sure to give him the fluffiest blanket I could find.

"I'll be there in a bit," I told him as he trotted down the hallway.

Once the Reds were comfortably settled in, everyone else decided to get a good night's rest, and we left them alone. The Blues and Wash disappeared to their respective bedrooms, but Tucker lagged behind. I raised an eyebrow as he approached me before I went into my own room.

"You know," he said quietly with a mischievous smile. "I was serious before. You really could spend the night with me…"

"No. I don't think so."

"Come on," he said, sidling closer. "I'm going to be pretty lonely…"

I snorted. "You sleep by yourself every night. Why is tonight any different?"

"You know you want to give Donut his own space," Tucker insisted. "Come on, Ells."

"No," I said, smiling but firm. "Tucker. That wouldn't be professional. You know that."

Tucker sighed. "I figured you'd say that. But… if you ever _don't_ give a shit about being professional, you know where to find me." He winked. "Besides, you weren't really caring about professionalism back in the forest…"

I smirked. "Yeah, my fault."

He smiled. "So… do you think that you could at least forget about your professionalism for… for just the next five seconds?"

I sighed in resignation. This was a bad idea, but... we _were_ alone. "…Fine."

Before I could change my mind, Tucker leaned in and kissed me zealously. I was too nervous about someone seeing it that I pulled away probably before five seconds were up, and Tucker was left kissing the air.

"Professionalism…" he muttered good-naturedly. "It'll be the death of me."

"_Good night,_ Tucker," I laughed, pushing him in the direction of his room. "See you tomorrow."

He smiled at me and disappeared down the hallway. I chuckled under my breath again and was just about quietly enter my own room when something down the hall caught my eye.

The doorway just down the hall was open and the light was on inside. I saw a figure's shadow moving in the light of the room. Then, I heard a frustrated growl and the door slammed shut.

Wash.

He had heard my entire encounter with Tucker.


	9. Supposed to be Dead, Part I

I didn't sleep well that night. Between my embarrassment about Tucker's kiss and the fear that we were going to be attacked any minute, I don't think I got more than a few hours of good rest. With every odd thump of the base, I'd jerk awake, tensing up and waiting for the AIs to mysteriously incapacitate us again.

Early in the morning, after I attempted for the umpteenth time to fall asleep, I just gave up. I slipped on my armor and sat heavily on the bed, staring out the window. No AIs had attacked us tonight. We seemed to be safe for now.

I quietly continued to dress, fastening my armor belt with the smallest click possible. My hand brushed open one of the compartments, however, and something fell out of the pocket.

I picked up the object. I hadn't taken a look at it in ages—it was a sturdy silver chain with two dog tags hanging loyally from it. I rubbed my finger gently over the ID number etched in the metal; I had long since memorized it. I sighed and stuck the chain back in my armor's small compartment, making sure to lock it securely.

Suddenly, I heard light footsteps walking urgently out of the base along with the clicking of a gun. That wasn't a good sign. Without waking Donut (who had slept like a baby all night), I quickly grabbed some weapons and hurried to the entrance of the base.

Outside, I saw Wash kneeling in the grass and staring intently at the ground. His fingers traced something he was staring at. He gazed at it for a moment before slowly lifting his head and looking to the trees surrounding Blood Gulch.

"What's going on?" I asked him, walking out of the base.

Wash looked up at me and his face darkened into a furious scowl.

"Go away, Eleven," he said coldly.

"Did you find anything important?" I asked, ignoring his rudeness uneasily. If I had any doubt before that he had seen me and Tucker…

He paused for a moment before huffing in frustration.

"A trail," he responded icily. "It could lead us to the AIs."

"What do you mean?"

"Look here in the grass," he said, indicating the ground. I strode over to where he stood and looked down.

The grass below his hand was burnt into a line of singed blackness. I frowned and examined it myself, running a hand over the dead grass. The blackness was not only this spot, but it stretched into a long line… leading right into the forest surrounding the canyon.

"How did you find this?" I asked.

"I heard a weird-ass noise this morning…" Wash said slowly, looking back toward the base. "It was coming from right outside my room. It reminded me of…" His voice trailed off. "Never mind. That'd be impossible anyway…"

I frowned, but before I could question him, he continued. "Then I looked outside the window to see what it was, and I saw this line of charred grass." The trail of burnt greenery led in the direction opposite the trees as well, leading straight back to the base and beginning under Wash's window.

"It has to be the AIs," he said simply. "The singed grass looks exactly like what happened to Sheila. I'm going to go see where they've gone."

"Hale told us to stay here until he gave us more information," I protested. Wash rolled his eyes at me. "With what happened with Sheila, we know even less than we did before!"

"I don't care. It's time to take action. We need to start hunting the AIs ourselves."

"Why though? Why now?"

"Because that's exactly what they don't want. They're attacking us so we can't track them. So that's exactly what we need to do."

"The Reds and Blues won't let you go—or they'll want to come."

Wash laughed humorlessly. "What makes you think I'm going to tell them about this? I don't want to risk getting them attacked again. Besides, there aren't enough weapons left for all of them. I'm going to go. I have to find the AIs somehow. I'm _not _going back to jail."

"_Back to jail?"_ I sputtered. "What—I thought you were working for Command now! I thought that you were out of prison!"

Wash looked at me disparagingly. "What, you think that I was let out for good behavior? Command is only letting me work for them because I'm the only one they can use to find the AIs. This is my last chance to do something right and get out of that hellhole once and for all. If I fail now, I'm going right back behind bars."

I was silent for a moment. "You can't do this by yourself. It's too dangerous."

"I'll do what I want," he responded shortly. "I'm not just going to sit around and wait for them to attack. We have a trail to follow, and I'm going to take it."

"There's no way in hell you're going by yourself," I replied fiercely. "I will not let you get infected by an AI again. You can't. It's just… no."

"Too bad. I'm leaving now."

"Then I'm coming."

Wash rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. You were busy enough last night—why don't you go back and keep yourself occupied _that way? _I'm sure your dear 'professionalism' won't hold out for long._"_

"You are really something else," I said slowly, my voice deepening into a growl. "_Your _professionalism is now at a negative. I didn't think that was possible. You should be proud."

Wash smiled bitterly. "Mine's a hell of a lot higher than yours. If I remember correctly, you never let _professionalism _get in the way of your love life before."

I gasped. That was it. I had had enough.

"You listen to me, Agent Washington," I spat, gripping his chest plate furiously in one of my fists and dragging his face closer to mine. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with you. But you know what? I don't care. I'm not going to let your idiocy get in the way of my job, all right? Now, I'm coming with you whether you like it or not. So get your ass moving. We have some AI hunting to do."

* * *

><p>We followed the trail left by the AIs deep into the woods, not speaking to each other at all. I was on the verge of pummeling the shit out of Wash… and he knew it.<p>

As we followed the path of singed foliage, I felt as if we were getting nowhere, but the trail didn't stop. It never left us hanging. It continued to trek farther and farther away from the Red and Blue bases… but we were determined to find where it led.

After hours of following the path, we came to a small clearing. At the edge of the clearing, the trail just… stopped. The singed markings on the ground vanished without a trace.

"This is weird…" I said, frowning. Wash walked into the clearing and began looking around in the dirt for any other signs of burnt greenery.

"There's nothing here," Wash replied. "Hmm. I'm going to go check over there. Maybe it picks up where it left off."

I nodded as he disappeared through the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. I stayed and crouched down to look more closely at the ending of the trail, hoping to see, perhaps, if it forked left or right.

It didn't.

Standing back up, I looked down at my GPS. It had been working pretty well ever since we'd gotten into the woods, but now it started to crackle. I tapped it impatiently. The stupid forest was screwing up the signal… or, at least, I _hoped_ the trees were the cause…

I heard a rustle behind me. Whipping around, I peered through the trees, but saw nothing. I frowned but turned back to my GPS. The rustling sound came again from behind me, but I ignored it. The crackling of my GPS had gotten louder. I began messing with the setting to make sure that we wouldn't lose the signal.

Without warning, I was attacked.

An enormous pair of arms wrapped themselves around my chest and knocked the wind out of me. Unable to scream for help, I tried to bend down and flip the attacker over my back, but the person lifted me up as easily as if I were a feather and threw me forcefully to the ground.

I skidded in the dirt, blacking out for a moment. I blinked my eyes furiously and tried to move, but my vision was so obscured that I couldn't make out what was happening at all. I felt my arms move forward in front of me.

As my vision returned, I looked up to see an enormous figure bending over me. I saw my own body lying on the ground in the reflection of the soldier's helmet as he snapped handcuffs smartly around my wrists, removing any weapons I had from my being and attaching them to his own. His white armor shone in the bright daylight of the clearing, and a large weapon gleamed brightly as he wore it on his back. It looked like a cross between…

…Between a knife and a rifle.


	10. PSA 3: Christmas Traditions

We would like to interrupt this program with an important message from our sponsors.

Sarge: Greetings! This is Sarge from the popular Web series Red vs. Blue!

Church: And this is Private Leonard L. Church from the same show.

Sarge: Today, we will be talking to you about the importance of Christmas traditions!

Church: Yes. We'd like to present to you a list of the most important Christmas traditions we have and how to go about performing them properly. _(mutters) _Whatever the hell that means around here.

Sarge: So let's get started! First, we'll talk about leaving cookies out for the most generous Red, jolly old St. Nick!

Church: Most of the time, you'll want to hand-bake them and leave a glass of milk, too.

Sarge: Let's go over to the fireplace where Donut made some Christmas cookies to leave out for—hey! Where the hell are they?

Grif: _(sitting near the fireplace with crumbs on his mouth)_

Sarge: You dirtbag! We were saving those for Santa!

Grif: Dude, you should be thanking me. Santa's job is to come in here and eat these. I was just helping the old man with his work. Hear that? I was actually doing work around here!

Caboose_: (horrified)_ Does that mean Santa is not coming?

Sarge: _(cocks his shotgun)_

Church: A second very important tradition around here is lighting candles and exchanging gifts on the eight days of Christmas!

Simmons: That's Hanukkah, you idiot!

Church: What the hell is that?

Simmons: …

Church: Wait, you mean we only get presents one day, while they get shit for eight nights in a row? How the hell is that fair?

Sarge: A third tradition that we have recently incorporated due to certain genders being present is the timeless tradition of hanging mistletoe!

Eleven: …You've got to be kidding me.

Tucker: _(looks above himself and grins at Eleven) _Well, look what we have here.

Eleven: Okay, it doesn't count if you put the mistletoe up while I'm standing here!

Tucker: _(shrugs)_ Well, it's still there either way. Pucker up!

Eleven: Sarge! I didn't sign up for this!

Sarge: It's for the cause, missy! We all have to make sacrifices! For example, I have to let Grif live so we're not outnumbered by Blues!

Tucker: _(leans toward Eleven, his eyes closed and lips puckered)_

Eleven: _(stands there unmoving, an eyebrow raised)_

Donut: _(sneaks up behind her and pushes her forward, mashing her lips into Tucker's)_ NOW KISS 8D

Eleven: _Mmph! (Tucker wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. She pulls away after a moment, her face red; Tucker looks rather smug) _Donut, you little fu—

Sarge: Finally, a last important tradition is the wearing of festive and red and green and red and red and a little more red attire! Let's take a look at our model!

Wash: _(standing there looking extremely pissed off in a Santa hat and hideous fuzzy Christmas sweater)_

Donut: Isn't it gorgeous? I designed it myself!

Wash: I take it back. I take it all back. I don't regret shooting you.

Donut: The fabric is genuine cashmere and the pom pons real velveteen! It's so soft, you'll just want to cuddle with someone all the time! _(eyes Wash)_

Wash: I hate you.

Sarge: Well, there you have it! A handful of our Christmas traditions.

Church: Don't forget to have some crazy holiday parties—but don't spike the eggnog. Too much.

Eleven: _(mutters)_ And don't get so drunk you grind with Maine at said parties…

Wash: _(glares at her furiously)_ Oh, for the love of God, don't even _start_ bringing that up again!

All: Happy holidays!

Donut: That's your cue, Wash!

Wash: _(still irritated)_ Ho, ho.

Eleven: _(whispers)_ You forgot the last one!

Wash: _(to Eleven)_ _…Ho._

* * *

><p>( I didn't have enough time this week to give the next chapter justice. This holiday season has been insane. Updates should go back to normal once the holiday dies down a bit. Until then, don't murder me in my sleep, please! I hate cliffhangers just as much as you do, and I'm working on it!<p>

-Stella

P.S. ALSO, SOMEONE DRAW CRANKY WASH IN A RIDICULOUS CHRISTMAS SWEATER. PRETTY PLEASE. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. )


	11. Supposed to be Dead, Part II

( GUYS GUYS GUYS. I FOUND THE PEOPLE I WILL LOVE FOREVER.

These talented artists all had lovely visions of Wash in various awful Christmas sweaters. Take a look at their art, and give them some love too!

theartisthostage[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14829132389/uh-stells-asked-for-a-grumpy-wash-in-a-sweater

-By Niriall

asksigma[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14845154034

-By MissZ (with her own entertaining dialogue)

thatgirl-lostintherain[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14846434576/this-is-for-eleven-its-agent-washington-in-a

-By thatgirl-lostintherain

ask-agent-eleven[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14977601249/submitted-by

-By crazyfool-whydoyoualwaysjump

_Seriously, guys. Go look. I was squeeing. )_

* * *

><p><em>Oh… oh my God<em>.

"Wash!" I yelled, attempting to kick Meta away from me. My boot collided forcefully with his armor, but he seemed impervious to pain_. "Wash!"_

"What is it? I—" His voice faltered as he entered the clearing and spotted Meta. "You!"

Meta stood up to face Wash. I tried to push him away from me, but his foot remained forcefully on my body, rendering me immobile. I was trapped; I couldn't overcome his beastly strength.

"What the—how the hell are you alive?" Wash spat, holding his gun up to Meta's head.

The white soldier growled, unsheathing his brute shot and fingering it.

"Now, now, Meta, let's not get hasty," a dark voice said. Its grinding tone came from the Freelancer's helmet, and my body jolted in shock. Meta didn't have the ability to speak...? "We don't want our guest to be killed before we carry out our plan, do we?"

Meta growled his consent but still didn't put away his weapon. Wash and I were both staring at the soldier in shock.

Meta had an AI.

And I knew exactly which one it was.

"All right," the voice continued from Meta's helmet. "Let's get down to business, _you fools."_

"What the…" I gasped. "How many damn times do you have to be killed? The EMP—the explosion—has that not been enough?"

O'Malley chuckled. "And look what we have here," he said. Meta looked down at me. "A tagalong. How cute."

"Let me go, you son of a bitch!" I yelled, squirming fruitlessly under Meta's boot.

"What, upset that you can't seem to hold your own when I'm around?" the AI asked, jeering. "Bitter that this is the second time I've overpowered you? Get used to it, babe."

Wash snarled in response and cocked his gun. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blast your host's brain out right now."

"Oh, please, Wash," O'Malley replied lazily. Meta grunted in what could have been laughter. "You won't kill Meta. Not when he has everything you want."

Wash was silent, but didn't move his gun from Meta's face.

"Are you really forcing me to start making threats already?" O'Malley asked. "We weren't scheduled to start that for another seven minutes. Oh, well. No reason the fun can't start early."

Again, Wash said nothing and did not move.

O'Malley sighed in mock annoyance. "All right. Meta, I know what our original plans were, but little—what was his nickname for her? Oh, right—_Ells_ here decided to tag along. We weren't expecting that. So… I have a new idea." He was silent for a moment, transmitting whatever idea he had into Meta's mind. The Freelancer emitted a guttural chortle. "You know what to do."

Meta looked down at me again, rolling me over so that he had full reign of my torso. The white soldier placed a boot on my ribs, pressing down just hard enough for it to hurt. I gasped as the right side of my ribcage began searing in pain.

Wash's eyes widened. "Stop it!" His hands shook on the gun he was holding.

"Are you going to shoot, Wash? When you have none of the answers and everything to lose?" Meta pressed more of his weight on me, and I cried out in pain. "Shoot, and your mission fails. You collect no AIs. I disappear. So… enough games. Drop your gun and I'll stop breaking dear Eleven's ribs."

Wash still didn't move, and O'Malley growled in frustration. "Hmm…" he said venomously. "I wonder what happens to a fragile human if the ribcage splinters _twice?"_

With that, Meta gave the right side of my ribcage a swift kick. I screamed as the pain shot through my torso as if a thousand knives cut into my flesh.

"Leave her alone!" Wash yelled, dropping his gun instantly. "There, are you happy? I'm unarmed!"

Meta had brought his leg back to kick me again, but O'Malley stopped him.

"That's enough for now," he said softly. "We'll dispose of her at the opportune moment. Have a little fun. But not yet."

Meta hoisted me up by the chain on my handcuffs and tossed me casually to the side so I was no longer blocking the path between him and Wash.

"I knew this was how it would work," O'Malley said smugly as I groaned, sitting up weakly against a tree. The right side of my rib cage was throbbing painfully. I prayed nothing had broken again. Wash gazed at me worriedly before turning his attention back to O'Malley and his host. "You can't afford to go back empty-handed, Wash. You need the AIs. Otherwise, you'll just go right back to jail. If you don't collect them, then you lose everything… again. You lose the chance to make amends… in more ways than one."

"H—how do you know this?" Wash sputtered. "How is this possible?"

"Do you really think we're that stupid in here?" O'Malley continued. "Wash, I'm offended."

"Well, considering—wait," Wash stopped mid-sentence. "…What do you mean, 'we'?"

"Oh, I'm not alone," O'Malley laughed. "Honestly, Meta here has been doing a much better job at collecting than you have, Daveyboy._ Again._"

Wash was silent. I stared confusedly at O'Malley, who chuckled evilly again.

"Why don't you say hello to an old friend of yours, Wash?" he sniggered. "He's been dying to see you. Really. He's been a bit… _self-destructive_, to say the least."

"You… you can't be serious!" Wash gasped.

Another voice emanated from Meta's helmet.

"Hello, David," it said shyly.

A mixture of horror and fury washed over me, and I tried scrambling frantically farther away from Meta. My bruised ribs sent sharp stabs of pain through my body, forcing me to stop. It couldn't be. It wasn't possible.

"E—Epsilon!" Wash gasped, staggering away a few steps. "You—you—"

"Yes, David, it's me," Epsilon replied. "I am no longer in the storage unit."

"Epsi-baby here is the reason we found out all about you, Wash," O'Malley laughed, delighting in our shock. "He knows you so well."

"Omega, Epsilon is not the only reason we were able to predict Agent Washington's movements," another voice cut in, this one calm and smooth. "Through recollections of tracked human behavioral patterns—"

"Oh, shut up, Delta!" O'Malley growled. "Stop ruining the moment!"

"Don't forget about me!" An excited voice piped in. "I'm the one who actually thought of our plan! I was the one who found all the pretty electricity and stuff!"

"Sigma, _I'm _the one running this show!" O'Malley snarled. "If you don't shut your trap right now, I'm going to scramble your code so badly you won't be able to form any more of your creative little plans ever again!"

At this, Meta tensed and growled loudly, bunching his hands into fists.

"Looks like Maine doesn't like you teasing me," Sigma giggled.

"You're only his favorite because you were his before," O'Malley muttered. "Calm down, you overgrown yeti. I'm not going to do anything to precious little Sigma."

Meta relaxed a bit, but his hands stayed curled into tight fists and he let out a protective rumble.

"This is impossible…" Wash said faintly. "You're supposed to be dead. All of you."

"David, when are you going to learn?" O'Malley grinned. "Meta here has been pushed off a building, sniped in the chest, shot in the throat, hit by an 18-wheeler, and flung over a bridge. Did you honestly think that falling over the side of a cliff would do it for him?"

"Fine!" Wash said frantically. "How about _you _then? And the other AIs? How is that possible? I set off the EMP myself!"

"Oh, Wash… you really do have a lot of maturing to do," O'Malley laughed. "You're so naïve. That failsafe protocol the Director instigated _wasn't real_. The Director only put the EMP in there because he was forced to. Having it was the law. But… as we all know, he didn't quite care about the rules, did he? He planted a fake EMP in the facility so that, if someone turned it on, it would simulate the effects of an EMP but not actually cause any harm. We were temporarily disabled, but, with time, we recovered and came back. Don't act so surprised, Wash. The Director would never be willing to destroy his work. He just skirted around the rules again. We were at the UNSC ball, remember? Or is your tiny human brain too stupid to comprehend that it was us?"

"Shut up!" Wash snapped. "You didn't show yourselves individually at that formal!"

"Our coding works differently inside an earpiece instead of armor. We had to act as a single entity."

"Okay, okay…" Wash said nervously. "So how the hell did you make it _here?"_

"We've been with Maine for a long time!" Sigma said lovingly with an adoring sigh. "He's been collecting and taking care of us ever since you thought he died!"

"You were at the formal to kill Hale," Wash interrupted. "But that's not your goal anymore…?"

"No. We no longer care about that idiot of a man," O'Malley cut in before Sigma could say anything. "We have bigger and better plans now. We're only on the first part of a multi-step plan now."

"What? What is it?" Wash demanded roughly. He was trying to find a loophole. Anything. A way to get the AIs from Meta.

O'Malley said nothing, basking in Wash's discomfort. He was enjoying dangling the information in front of the Freelancer.

"Tell me what you want!" Wash spat angrily.

O'Malley laughed hysterically, the echo of his voice resounding through the forest.

"You."


	12. Supposed to be Dead, Part III

"Wh—what!" Wash gasped.

"Everything has been going according to plan, Daveyboy," O'Malley sighed. "You fell right into our trap."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Wash, listen to yourself. Always whining_. _Always complaining_. Pay attention, now. _Your tiny human brain was outsmarted. We tricked you. Do you hear me? We've won, and the fight hasn't even started.

"_We sent_ those incomplete signals to Command. We _wanted _them to pick up our general location. We knew they would send you, David. You're the only one who can help them. We made sure the others couldn't find us. We destroyed the tank's AI tracker. We ripped apart your supplies and the ship. Don't you get it yet? Meta made that sound outside the window to wake you up, and we created that burnt trail outside your window so you could follow it and find us here! You've lost, David, and you aren't walking out of here with us! _We_ are the ones walking out of here with _you_."

"But wait!" I yelped. I needed to distract them. Screw collecting the AIs. We were no longer the hunters. We were the hunted. "If you wanted Wash, why did you attack him at Blue base?" I asked him the first question that sprang to my mind. I needed to buy us some time. We needed to escape.

Meta turned to face me and growled in irritation.

"…That was my fault," Sigma said, almost more excited than woeful at the memory. "I got a little carried away with Sheila's remaining power!"

It was O'Malley's turn to grumble furiously. "Ugh. That entire plan was a mistake. We meant to kill the Blues, but Sheila didn't have enough power left after we disabled her AI tracker. We meant to leave Alpha and Wash unharmed and kill the others, but Sigma couldn't control the amount of power we had left and it ended up attacking the four of them evenly."

"Why didn't you take Wash then? He was unconscious. You could have kidnapped him easily." I saw Wash glare at me from the periphery of my vision.

Another one of O'Malley's laughs escaped Meta's helmet. "Oh… we need him _awake_ for the fun we have in store for him."

"What the hell is this?" Wash demanded. "You planned all this—everything—just for me?"

"Oh, don't flatter yourself," O'Malley responded lazily. "You're not my first choice. Not by a long shot. If I were able to choose, I would have wanted Tex in an instant. Perhaps we had our quarrels, but I'm willing to look past that. She was so good to me…" he trailed off, reminiscent. "But, as she's rather dead now, I have to go with my second choice. And that's you. You've already been taken over before, Wash, and we know your mind is weak. It's easily controlled. You won't cause us any trouble." O'Malley sighed. "So, actually, I take it back. We don't want you. We _need _you. Meta's power is waning fast. He can't handle all of us being in here at once. We need to spread out to a new host in order to regain some of that energy.

"Ever since I started infecting my lovely hosts through radio waves, any good host would keep his or her radio permanently off. So I'm stuck! However… not all the AIs need radios to jump from victim to victim.

"Take little Epsi here, for example. He's already been inside your head, Wash." At that, Wash cringed, and O'Malley cackled with delight at his reaction. "Yes… remember that, Daveyboy? What a pleasant experience that was? You see, since Epsilon has already formed such a close connection with your psyche, he doesn't need anything to transfer to your head. You're special in that, Wash. Epsilon can just go inside your mind without any help at all."

Wash and I both gasped.

"You—you want to spread out—" Wash stuttered. "You want to spread Epsilon to me?"

O'Malley grinned evilly. "David, David, David… perhaps you didn't hear me clearly. I want my own host. I don't like to share. Being crammed in here with everyone else is exceedingly uncomfortable. As the Director's rage, I get a perk—all the rest of the fragments listen to me. When I say I want my own space, I get my own space. So… as entertaining as that would be… no. Well…" he laughed again. "Not permanently, at least."

"You won't get inside me!" Wash spat heatedly. "My radio isn't on!"

"Exactly," O'Malley continued calmly. "That's why you need a little… persuasion."

His words permeated the still air of the clearing as their meaning sunk into our heads. I inhaled sharply and tried to stand, but collapsed back on the ground instantly. _My damned ribs._

"Here's the deal, Wash," O'Malley said in a businesslike tone to Wash, who had frozen in horror. "Turn on your radio. Let me in. If you don't, I'll let Epsilon loose inside your head instead, and he will certainly change your mind. It's your choice."

Wash clenched his jaw with tension. "You're lying."

"Don't play games with me, David," O'Malley responded darkly. "You _will _regret doing so."

Wash gulped but didn't back down. "This is impossible. It's a bluff."

"Oh…that's it, then," O'Malley chuckled, the poison teeming in his voice. "I do love a challenge. Epsilon!" He barked.

"Y—Yes, Omega?" The memory AI replied.

"Your dear friend isn't cooperating. It is time."


	13. Supposed to be Dead, Part IV

Epsilon hesitated inside Meta's helmet.

"Are you certain this is a good idea, Omega?"

O'Malley snarled in irritation. "Epsilon… now."

"You promise that showing him the fragmentation won't hurt me as well again?"

"Yes, you fool!" The rage AI snapped. "We've discussed this a million times! Now get in there!"

Epsilon did not reply, and, for one wild moment, I thought that we were safe. That O'Malley had been lying. That Epsilon truly couldn't invade Wash's mind unassisted. However, I then heard a sharp whoosh as Epsilon left Meta. Wash staggered back a few steps as his mind was inhabited once more.

"Are you in there, Epsilon?" O'Malley called to Wash.

"Yes, Omega," Epsilon said, his voice now emitting from Wash's helmet. Wash tensed as the voice rang from his own entity, unable to do anything about it.

"Very good, Epsi," O'Malley purred. "Now, remind him a little of those lovely memories you shared with him before. If we're lucky… he might go insane again."

"No!" Wash and I yelled simultaneously. The Freelancer stepped back once more. "Epsilon, don't! Don't do this!"

"David, I don't want to hurt you," Epsilon said evenly. "I never did. You were a good host, but… You still are. We need you. If you let Omega in, I won't have to cause you pain."

Wash shook his head furiously. "No."

"Then… I'm sorry, David," Epsilon replied, true regret in his voice. "I don't want to show you these experiences again, but it's necessary."

"Epsilon, no! You don't have to do this!" Wash yelled, his voice, laced with panic, echoing around the clearing. "Don't—"

His cry was cut short. He fell silent, standing in the clearing. I heard nothing of Epsilon, heard nothing of what was going on inside his head. Then, slowly, with an infinitesimally small noise, I heard Wash's breathing.

It was quiet at first. He seemed to be trying to calm himself—trying to focus on overcoming the memory Epsilon was forcing upon him. His breaths were long and deep. He was trying to stay himself. He was trying to keep himself in the moment.

O'Malley noticed this control, and he growled. "Epsilon," he called maliciously. "More."

Epsilon said nothing, but the intensity of his memory transfer increased. Wash's breathing became faster and louder, but he seemed to be exhaling through gritted teeth, for no other sound escaped him. I watched in horror as Wash's limbs began shaking as he struggled to stay standing.

Meta continued to watch him, emotionless and unmoving. O'Malley's voice reverberated from the rounded helmet once again. "More."

At this, Wash let out a muffled grunt and sank to his knees, his entire body shaking with spasms. He gripped at his head tightly, as if that movement would protect himself from Epsilon's forced memories. "H—Here…" he said, still struggling to stay in the moment. "S—Still he—here…"

Epsilon continued to penetrate his mind silently, and Wash's volume increased. His breathing, now ragged and uneven, was scattered with groans of pain. He held his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his helmet. He gripped it tightly for a moment, and, with a swift movement, shoved his helmet off. I gazed with horror at Wash's face as he clenched every muscle with tension, his eyes shut tight, trying to block Epsilon from his mind.

O'Malley snarled in frustration. "More!"

Wash let out a violent yell of pain as Epsilon increased the intensity once more. A vein was throbbing in his temple and he threw his head back, his eyes popping open. He stared above himself, unseeing, as Epsilon's memories continued to destroy his mind.

"Wash!" I screamed. _Not again, not again! _"Wash, can you hear me? You're still there! Don't give in to him!"

"You, shut up!" O'Malley rounded on me, and Meta pointed his brute shot at me viciously. "One more word, and you won't live long enough to see your precious Washington become ours!" Meta turned his head to face Wash. "Epsilon, _more!"_

At that, Wash let out a terrible scream of pain and collapsed to the ground, convulsing violently.

"Please, please stop!" I begged, tears coming to my eyes. Wash bellowed as he relived Epsilon's fragmentation repeatedly, clawing viciously at his own head. "I'll do anything! Anything! Please, I'm begging you!"

Meta looked down at me.

"Epsilon, stop," O'Malley said coldly. Wash automatically fell silent, his panting still heavy.

"Why don't we make this even better?" The rage AI continued with savage relish, stopping my temporary relief with a shock of dread. "Show him his _own_ memories this time. Show him something pleasant. Show him… Eleven. Maybe a nice memory of them performing some silly human ritual. Making love or some such nonsense."

"Wh—what?" I gasped.

"Yes, Omega," Epsilon replied. Wash watched the memory as it flashed before his eyes, still breathing heavily, seemingly unaware of anything that was occurring around him. He seemed to be relaxing…

"Now," O'Malley seethed with rancor. "Show him her broken body. Show him how he saw her with her ribs shattered. Show him every drop of blood and every twisted bone. And… return the fragmentation memory simultaneously." Epsilon confirmed his understanding.

"Oh, and Epsilon?" O'Malley added nonchalantly. "MORE!"

"NO!" I screamed.

Wash's roar of pain echoed through the entire clearing and beyond, startling some alien birds and scattering them into the sky. His body twisted into gruesome angles in the dirt.

"Think about it, Wash!" O'Malley called to him over his pained bellows. "Think about the pain you've undergone. Think about how you lost your job and your mind. Remember every ounce of ache you felt as Epsilon slowly unraveled inside you."

At that, Wash let out another yell of agony. "Stop!"

O'Malley chuckled. "You remember how it felt now, Wash, don't you? Thinking that your soul was being tortured into different pieces? Remember each and every knife that stabbed at you?"

"Stop, stop!" cried Wash between his screams of misery.

"Think about this, Wash," O'Malley continued over the noise. "Your life has never been devoid of pain. It has always been present there, eating you from inside out. Don't you want that pain to go away?"

"Yes!" called Wash frantically, digging his fingers into his temple and drawing blood. "Yes, yes, no more pain!"

O'Malley laughed. "You may decrease the intensity, Epsi. But don't take it all away yet."

Epsilon complied, and, though Wash's thunderous yells lessened, he still clutched at his head and shook uncontrollably.

"David," O'Malley continued. Meta began walking toward him slowly. "I can take away your pain. I can remove the memories. I can do it all. Do you want me to help you?"

"Yes… yes…" Wash moaned. "No more… please…"

"I will take Epsilon from your head," O'Malley said cooly. "On one condition. _Let me in instead._ This is the only way. Turn on your radio, and I will enter your mind. I can take it all away. All the pain."

With a shaking hand, Wash reached up.

He turned his radio on.


	14. Supposed to be Dead, Part V

( For those of you who know me on RT [and if you don't, shame on you - come find me under "Stelladea" and say hi!], you know that this week is insanely busy for me. So... only a single chapter update this week... but I hope it won't disappoint. ;] -Stella )

* * *

><p>With an inhuman scream of delight, O'Malley instantly transferred into Wash's helmet. The soft whoosh of Epsilon returning back to Meta was hardly audible over O'Malley's ecstatic din, but I was thankful that Wash would no longer be in pain… or, at least, I hoped that would be the case. I didn't think that torturing Wash was on the top of O'Malley's priority list anyway. He just wanted to get on with business. Unfortunately, I had no idea what the next step in his plan would entail. I only knew that the AIs and Meta had completed the first part successfully.<p>

That was bad enough.

The moment the exchange took place, Wash grew still and kneeled on the ground, breathing heavily. However, his limbs no longer trembled and his breaths were steady.

"Well, well, well…" O'Malley said, his voice now coming from Wash. "I should probably give you a moment to…" His voice trailed off for a moment as he examined his new host's mind. "What?" O'Malley continued, surprise lining his voice. "No insanity? Not even a cell of brain damage?"

Wash's breathing slowed and O'Malley made a noise of frustration. "Well," he continued. "I suppose your pathetic human brain is stronger than I thought. I was certain that Epsilon would completely incapacitate you for me!"

Wash said nothing but stood up painlessly. He looked… completely fine. Except for his face. That look on his face… he was O'Malley's now.

"O'Malley!" I called, seething, from my spot beneath the tree. My knees shaking, I managed to stand up, leaning heavily against the trunk. My ribs throbbed in pain. "Congratulations. You have Wash. What do you want now?"

The rage AI chuckled. "Oh, just the usual. World domination and the like."

"God damn it!" I growled. "What are you going to do with him? What's the next part of your plan?"

O'Malley chuckled. "Why would I tell you? Ells, David invited me in. You saw it with your own eyes. The first step in our plan is complete. It took a lot of effort to get to this point, and I'm not going to give him up so easily. David and I have a lot to do together. Oh, yes. Quite a bit.

"Wash," O'Malley continued, now addressing his host. "You're working for me, now. Don't forget that. We have much to do."

The Freelancer nodded, his face emotionless. O'Malley was then silent as he transmitted the next part of his plan to Wash's mind. Wash looked up and through the forest—back in the direction of Blue base—as he listened carefully.

"They all must die. They know too much. Do you understand?" O'Malley said aloud when he was done.

I wanted Wash to resist. I wanted him to curse and rage at the AI and demand that he leave his mind.

Instead, Wash emitted a horrible evil chuckle that threw chills up my spine.

"No!" I cried. "O'Malley, don't! Don't hurt the others!"

O'Malley sighed evilly as Wash cracked his knuckles. "Don't hurt the others?" he asked mockingly. "Oh, Ells, I think it's time for a little fun. We're going to kill you all anyway, but… I do like playing with my food before eating it." He paused. "Why don't we start with your girlfriend, Washington?"

Wash's eyes locked onto mine, and my breathing quickened nervously. He slowly began stalking toward me, an evil grin spreading across his face.

"Wash… Wash!" I breathed. "Come on, you have to think straight! This isn't you!"

He continued to draw nearer to me, paying my words no attention.

"Come on, Ells. Don't you trust me?" He grinned darkly and held out his hand. I snatched my handcuffed wrists away and pressed myself into the tree.

"Stop it! Wash, you need to stop." I gulped nervously as he stealthily approached.

He continued to smile evilly. "What's wrong, beautiful? Scared?"

"No!" I squeaked. I gazed desperately to either side of where I was standing to somewhere I could escape, but I knew that, if I tried to move from leaning against the tree, I would collapse.

I was trapped.

"Just—just don't get any closer!"

"But why?" he stepped toward me again, less than a foot away. "Don't you care about me?" He paused, rolling his eyes. "Oh, right—you don't, do you?"

"Wh—what?" I gasped. I tried moving away from the tree but almost fell in the process. I had to scramble back against the trunk, panting heavily, to stay standing.

"Yes, yes…" O'Malley chuckled, egging Wash on. He showed Wash a flash of a memory, and the Freelancer let out a yell of rage and grabbed my wrists roughly.

"Do you have _any idea_ how much I've been through?" he roared. "Epsilon—insanity—jail—everything! I lost everything! _And you said you liked me better that way!_"

What the hell was he talking about? "Wash… you… you don't know what you're saying," I said faintly.

"Don't listen to a thing she says," O'Malley laughed. "She's only trying to escape you—again. She just wants to go back to _Tucker."_

At this, Wash snarled angrily.

"Yes," O'Malley continued to whisper. "Why should that Blue idiot get the girl? Why shouldn't you get what you want as well?"

Wash was quiet for a moment.

"I _should _get what I want."

"Precisely…" O'Malley hissed evilly. "Come on, Washington. Get what you want before killing her. If you want her… take her."

Wash's eyes flashed with a look I never dreamed of seeing. I began panicking.

"D—Dammit, Wash!" I mustered the strength to utter, terrified. "D… Don't…"

Wash paid me no attention. He closed the remaining space between us instantly, one hand clasping tightly around the handcuffs. The other hand reached up and ripped off my helmet roughly, letting it fall to the ground with a loud clunk. He gripped my chin tightly in his free hand, forcing my face toward him.

"Wash… no…" The panicked words trailed off as the Freelancer's grip tightened. His face came closer and closer to mine. Instead of going for my lips, however, he tilted my face up and moved his mouth to breathe on my neck. Simultaneously, I felt his other hand drop my bound wrists and grab something on his armor; suddenly, I felt the blade of a knife as well as his breath on my neck.

"After the fun…" O'Malley whispered. "Kill her."

Wash moved in to press his lips against my skin… when he was interrupted by a loud voice behind him.

"You're a sick bastard, O'Malley."

Wash spun around and I watched over his shoulder as a black-armored soldier walked into view.

"Tucker!" I gasped. "Be careful! Wash is infected with O'Malley! He—"

"Tucker?" the black soldier interrupted me. "What the hell are you talking about? I'm not that turquoise idiot!"

My jaw dropped. That wasn't Tucker's voice. That wasn't even a guy's voice.

It was Tex.

Meta let out a snarl of surprise and tensed up as every single AI in his mind began talking excitedly at once. O'Malley yelped in surprise and joy, transferring out of Wash's head instantaneously.

"I have you now!" O'Malley cried in malicious pleasure, his voice now emanating from Tex's helmet.

"Yes, you do," she said savagely, turning to the shocked white soldier. "Meta, are you coming, or what?"

Meta collected himself instantly and followed Tex as she left the clearing, disappearing into the woods.

Unable to take this any longer, I fell to the grass, sobbing. I could handle most things. Drunk boys, robot clones, Tabasco sauce. But… but this…

"Eleven…" Wash croaked weakly, falling down next to me. "E—Ells…"

My body shook with sobs. I couldn't stop them.

"G—Go after them—" I stuttered through my tears. "G—Got to find—AIs—"

Wash looked back at the forest for a moment, but didn't stand up. "Later."

Slowly, hesitantly, he put both of his arms protectively around me. I tensed at first, attempting to scramble away from him, but my tears flowed so freely I could hardly breathe. I let him pull me gently into his lap as I continued my shaking and sobs.

"Eleven, I—" Wash's voice cracked. "I'm so sorry. So… so sorry."

I felt my mind go blank and my world go black.


	15. Recovery One One, Part I

I was moving. Steadily. Like the rocking of a ship. But I wasn't walking.

Semi-consciously, I came to, realizing Wash was carrying me.

"What the hell is going on here?" I heard an urgent voice yell. It was Church. "What's wrong with Eleven?"

"Ells!" Tucker's frightened voice rang through. "What happened?"

"I'll explain everything once we get inside," Wash said. He sounded tired and hoarse. "We need to lay her down."

The Blues ushered us inside. Wash rested me on the couch, and, though I could hear them clearly, I didn't have enough strength to face them. I didn't want to think about what had just happened. I simply let my eyes rest and listened to their conversation.

"What is this, you asshole?" Tucker demanded. "What did you do to her?"

"It was an accident!" Wash retorted forcefully. "I didn't mean for anything to happen!"

Church cut off Tucker's angry reply sternly. "What the hell happened, Wash? Tell us."

Wash sighed heavily, sitting down on the ground beside the couch where I lay.

"This morning, I woke up to a weird noise and saw a trail of burnt grass outside my window," Wash said tonelessly. "I went to investigate, but Eleven heard me and wanted to come. When we went scouting in the woods, Meta snuck up on us and captured her. The AIs—all inside Meta's armor—needed a new host, and since they couldn't have Tex, O'Malley wanted me instead." Wash paused and gulped loudly. "Since Epsilon had been in my head before, he could go in again without any help at all. So he did and—and—he tortured me. All the memories again. They all came back." Wash took a shuddering breath before he continued.

"O'Malley said that the only way to get rid of the pain would be for me to allow him in my mind instead. So… so I did. I didn't have a choice. The pain. You don't understand. Once O'Malley was inside me, he ordered me to—to—" Wash's voice broke. "He wanted me to kill all of you… starting with her. But worse… he wanted me to… to hurt her beforehand. Oh, God!" He howled. "If Tex hadn't shown up, I don't know what I would have—"

"What?" Church interrupted, falling over to the ground with a loud thud. "T—Tex?"

"She's not dead," Wash said slowly to Church's squeak of disbelief. "She showed herself when we were in the woods and the second O'Malley saw she had her radio on, he left me and used her instead. They ran off together with Meta and the rest of the AIs."

Church made a small gargling sound of shock. "You—you're sure it was her? You're positive?"

"Church, we were in Project Freelancer together. I know when it's her, and that was _definitely_ her."

Church was silent for a moment. "We have to find her. We need to go now."

"What, and leave Eleven alone here with her ribs all screwed up?" Wash scowled.

"Her ribs!" Tucker yelped. "You didn't say her ribs were hurt again!"

"Yeah, well, surprise," Wash replied, irritated. "Meta beat her up some before I could stop him. We need to take care of her first before we do anything about the other AIs, Meta, or Tex. You have to agree with that, Church."

Church said nothing, but I imagined he didn't exactly have the ability to speak at the moment. He probably nodded his head.

"Good," Wash continued. "Come on, let's get this armor off. We need to check for fractures."

_Oh, shit,_ I thought. I wanted to show the guys that I wasn't unconscious—I wanted to "wake up"—but they weren't stupid. They'd know that I had been eavesdropping. So… I had no choice but to let them take care of me.

"Church, we need some painkiller. Do you have any in the first-aid kit?"

"Yeah," Church croaked, getting up and exiting the room. I had a feeling he wouldn't come back for a bit. He sounded on the verge of insanity… he probably needed some time to himself.

That left Tucker and Wash alone together as they began removing the top half of my armor.

Great.

"How did you know that Eleven had broken her ribs before?" Wash asked the aqua soldier distrustfully. I opened my eyes just a fraction to watch the communication between them.

"It looks like her ribs are completely trashed on the right side. It's kind of hard to miss, dude."

Wash frowned. "So she's had her armor off around you?"

Tucker stared back defiantly. "…Yeah. She has."

_God damn it._ Wash's hand twitched angrily as he discreetly shoved Tucker's hand away to remove himself the black under-armor layer I wore. Tucker noticed this and flashed a glare at Wash.

Wash ignored that look as he finished removing the black under-armor and lifted up my tank top gently just enough to show the skin covering my ribs. Tucker inhaled sharply and Wash frowned.

"Are—are they broken again?" Tucker asked.

Wash ran a finger over the ribs. I lay still as pain shot through my torso, but this was mere discomfort compared to the last time…

"No," Wash replied, his voice strained. A vein was throbbing in his neck as he gazed down at the ribs, and I resisted clenching my fists into tight balls. "The purple skin… those are just bruises. The ribs themselves didn't crack again." He ran his fingers lightly over my skin again. "We should be glad that a pneumothorax hasn't formed."

"Uh… what?"

Wash seemed to be enjoying Tucker's lack of medical knowledge. "It's when air gets trapped under the skin and squishes the lung. If that had happened around the bruised areas, we'd see her skin forming these crackly bubbles."

Tucker frowned. "How do _you_ know so much about rib injuries?"

Wash didn't answer.

"Church needs to get back here with those meds," Wash said instead. "We have to give them to Ells or she'll be in a shitload of pain when she wakes up."

"Don't call her that," Tucker scowled. "She hates that nickname."

"You call her that all the damn time!" Wash shot back. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Because—Because—" Tucker spluttered. "I made it up!"

"You are _so_ ignorant!" the gray soldier spat. "Do you know anything about her at all? _I'm the one who started calling her 'Ells.'_ She worked on Project Freelancer, did you know that?"

Tucker was silent. "What?"

"She was one of the people overseeing the project!" Wash said, his voice rising angrily. "That's how we met. How we started dating. Our relationship ended so terribly, it's no wonder she hates the nickname now! God, you're a complete _idiot!_"

"You aren't right for her!" Tucker exploded. "You're a damn basket case. She said how much of a drinking problem you have. You're insane!"

Wash snarled and grabbed Tucker's collar aggressively. "_I am not insane!_"

Tucker didn't back down, though he did resist against Wash's grasp. "Yes you are! You don't deserve her!"

Wash's grip tightened and he leaned forward, inches from the aqua soldier's face, his eyes bright with fury.

"You have no idea what I've been through," Wash said quietly, his voice dangerously low. "You don't know a damn thing."

"I know for damn sure that she doesn't want _you_ anymore!"

Wash let out a noise of rage and raised his fist to punch Tucker.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Church had just walked in holding the medicine. What a sight he was seeing—Tucker and Wash about to attack each other as I lay, still seemingly unconscious, on the couch with my tank top halfway pulled up.

Wash narrowed his eyes and shoved Tucker away. The two soldiers still stared at each other, seething.

Church was quiet as he walked by the two angry soldiers. He kneeled beside me and stuck a syringe in my arm, transferring the pain medication to my bloodstream.

"It's a miracle she didn't wake up with you two acting like idiots," Church muttered. He seemed to have regained his composure, but the medicine was making me drowsy. "You guys are making complete cockbites out of yourselves…"

Church's voice seemed far away. I was having trouble concentrating on how Tucker and Wash were responding… their words all seemed jumbled together...

…That was it. I couldn't concentrate any longer on their quarrels. I felt my mind slipping away and darkness enveloped me once more.

* * *

><p>( I suddenly have a terrible urge to start making "Team Tucker" and "Team Wash" t-shirts… )<p> 


	16. Recovery One One, Part II

_Darkness._

_Echoing footsteps through an empty hallway. My footsteps._

_No sight… no vision. Oppressive blackness all around._

_I was carrying something. Something important. Something. I couldn't lose it. Life depended on it. Not my life. Theirs. His._

_I panted. Breathing faster. Had to deliver this. Had to get it to the right hands. Couldn't afford to lose it. Not when… when…_

…

_So close… no. Had so much farther to go. So much._

_Darkness pressed upon me. I felt it. Cold. Something was coming. I knew. But couldn't remember._

_ I began walking faster. Something was about to happen. No. Not if I could stop it. Heard my own heart beat._

_ Beat._

_ Beat._

_ Beat._

_ Something was about to happen. The darkness. Saw nothing. The lights… where were the lights?_

_ Something. Happen. About to. Couldn't remember. Had to stop it. Had to. Life. Needed to save it. That life. So important._

_ I stopped. Heard a noise. That noise. I knew that sound. I began panting. Panicking. This couldn't happen again. I couldn't fail again. Not again. I needed to succeed._

_ My legs wouldn't move. Paralyzed. It was happening again. All over again. Trapped. So trapped._

_ Blurred images. Attack. Tried to defend myself. Again. But even now I knew it was useless. It would happen again. Just like last time._

_ It was knocked from my hand. The key to success. To ending this._

_ Crunching. Breaking. It was gone. It was gone._

_ I tried to cry out. I knew what was coming next. I tried to scramble away. But. But. No. Please._

_ No._

_ Blinding pain. Torture. All over again. Searing down the right side of my body. No way to stop it. The pain. It kept going and going and going and going…_

_ Crunching. Breaking. This time, it was me. Want to die. Too much pain. Too much._

_ I tried screaming into the darkness, but my voice wouldn't work. The pain. I couldn't. No thoughts but the pain._

_ Let it end. Please. Let it end._

_ My own heartbeat. I could hear it._

_ Beat._

_ Beat._

_ Beat._

_ Darkness._


	17. Recovery One One, Part III

_Mmm… Not much time left now…_

My mind was fuzzy. I didn't really know what was happening. I was just so… comfortable. I didn't want to move.

Warmth beneath me. Hearing a heartbeat. Lying on his chest. He was breathing slowly. Asleep.

Smiling slightly and still half unconscious, I snuggled into his chest. It was almost time. He would have to get up soon and go to training.

_I hope the Director doesn't keep them too long today… these training days are brutal…_

He sighed as I buried my face in his chest, wishing for time to move slower. He smelled good. Just like normal. He always smelled good in the mornings.

Ugh… I didn't want to have to get up. I didn't want to go and take notes on their training again.

My hand fell from his chest, dangling over the bed and dragging on the ground.

_Wait…_ I thought suddenly. _When did his bed get so short?_

My eyes popped open, and I was lying on a gray-and-yellow-clad torso.

"Gahh!"

I sprang up off the couch, staggering backwards and almost toppling over instantly. Pain shot through my ribs.

Wash jerked awake. "Wha—" He saw me staring at him in horror and his eyes widened. "I—Eleven, uh—"

"What the hell do you think you're _doing_?" I sputtered.

"Shit," he muttered, rubbing his temple. "I didn't mean to fall asleep—"

"_Didn't mean to fall asleep?_" I squawked. "How the hell did that—why did you—what the fu—"

"Calm down, for Christ sake," he replied. "You should be thanking me."

"Thanking you?" I stammered, my face burning a bright red. "Thanking you for what, exactly?"

Wash gazed at me steadily, his brow creased with a frown. "You were having nightmares last night, Eleven. You were screaming and thrashing around. The only way I could get you to calm down was… was to do that."

I didn't know how to respond. "That was the only way…?"

Wash nodded seriously and his face reddened a bit.

I said nothing. He could have woken me up, or gotten the others, or _something._

"Well… thanks." I said shortly, and turned to exit the room.

"Eleven," Wash said, sitting up on the couch. "I know what you were dreaming about last night."

I stopped and slowly turned to face him. "…You do?"

He nodded. "You were reliving it. I know."

I looked away from him and shrugged. "Sometimes the stuff I try to avoid in reality comes back to haunt me at night. I hadn't dreamt about it in a long time."

He looked at me steadily and swallowed hard. "I… I'm sorry."

Our eyes met. "Wash…" I said slowly. "What the hell is going on with you?"

He cocked his head. "What?"

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about," I stated. "What are you doing? You've been an asshole to me ever since we ended. Why are you… well…"

"Why am I _not_ being an asshole?" he responded dully. "What, do you want me to go back to doing that?"

"I—no, but… why the change?"

"I don't have to explain anything to you." His tone wasn't rude. Just firm.

I gaped at him. "Fine. Okay. Because I don't have any right to know why you've been treating me the way you have."

"Just drop it, Eleven. Can't you just accept the fact that I'm being civil again?"

"But why?" I asked. Nothing made sense. "What happened to make you change?"

"I said to just drop it!" he said sharply. He stood up quickly and opened his mouth as if about to say something else, but snapped it shut quickly.

"Oh, so now you suddenly care?" I asked, my anger rising. "After all this time, you only start asking if I'm okay when you realize I have nightmares? After all this time of being a complete douchebag to me?"

"Just trust me."

I almost laughed at that. "_Trust you?_ How can I possibly trust you? After everything? After your constant contempt and bitterness and arrogance and spite? After your utter unprofessionalism at the UNSC formal?"

Wash's jaw clenched. "You don't even know why I was acting like that."

"Yeah," I said coldly. "My logic seems to be woefully sub-par in that area. Mind telling me why you decided to get drunk and shit?"

I expected Wash to explode in frustration with some sarcastic response, but that reaction didn't come. Instead, Wash looked down. After a moment, he looked at me, his face pained.

"…You said you liked me better as an AI zombie."

Silence.

And I realized the full impact of what I had said.

My jaw dropped open. I tried speaking—saying anything at all—but words wouldn't come. I had committed the worst possible crime against him. And I hadn't even realized it.

"Did you really mean it?" he asked quietly. "You really liked me better with Epsilon?"

I knew he wasn't really asking me that. I knew he knew my answer to that question… but it still hurt like hell to hear him say it. Complete knives to my insides.

"I…" I said faintly. "Wash, I…"

"Eleven… there is so much going on that you don't understand," Wash said in a low voice.

"Then tell me!" I pleaded. "I just want the truth. Please, can't you just explain? Why were you being so damned rude to me?"

Wash looked away from me, biting his lip. Then, he seemed to come to some sort of decision.

"You don't understand how hard this has been for me," he finally said, pain lining his voice. "After Epsilon, I changed. You know that. Everyone does. I'm an asshole now. It's just so easy to be. But… being a dick to you… God, you have no idea how hard I've been trying to keep that up."

"What… what are you talking about?"

Wash turned his gaze on me. His eyes were full of regret.

"Eleven… I've been _trying_ to be an asshole to you since we broke up."

I stared. "…Why?"

Wash sighed deeply, rubbing his temple.

"Ells… what happened between us… how I ended our relationship… that was terrible. After that, I couldn't allow myself near you again. I became a complete and total dickhead to you in order to get you away from me… and to get myself away from you. Every rude comment just… just killed me, Ells. Having you give me looks of so much hatred… I'll never forget it. But I knew I had to do it. I could never allow myself to get close to you again. Not after what happened.

"So the solution was just to get you away from me. I was an ass to you to get you to hate me—to get you to avoid me. I needed you to stay as far away from me as possible so I wouldn't be tempted to… tempted to want you back. And it was working… until the damned UNSC ball."

I forced myself to speak, although something seemed to be caught in my throat.

"Why were you such a pervert?" I asked carefully. "That was… new. You hadn't done that before. Was being a douchebag not enough to get me to hate you?"

He sighed. "There are a couple reasons. I've screwed up this plan enough, I might as well give you the truth.

"First of all, I'll admit it—I did want to see you wearing that dress. Fine. I'm a guy; sue me.

"Secondly, yeah, I did it all to piss you off. The dress, the shoes, placing all my stuff in the bedroom. I wanted to make you mad so badly and distance you even further from me… at least, that was the plan at first.

"I thought I knew what I was doing. At first, it was, like you said on the ship, 'just another tactic to piss you off.' Originally, it was all part of the plan to distance us. To stop me from having feelings for you. I knew you wouldn't stand for any guy who was just trying to get in your pants, so I went completely overboard. The slurs and comments… I thought I knew what I was doing. I knew you would get so mad at me that you'd probably never speak to me again. And then… and then you said the AI comment… and you left.

"When you had gone… I just didn't care anymore. The disgust on your face was too much for me to handle. I got wasted. And then, after the hangover, I realized I couldn't back down so easily. I hated you for making me feel so weak. I knew I had to keep trying. So I did.

"And—and then—and then yesterday, with O'Malley—that was the last straw. O'Malley fed on my anger and frustration. Acting like an ass to you didn't work. I can't stay away from you, Ells. I'm still here, still…" he paused and gulped. "Still feeling the same way about you. Wanting to—to start over."


	18. Recovery One One, Part IV

I was silent for a moment, stunned.

"You know we can't start over," I said, my voice strained. "Too many things have happened. You've... you've done too much. Yes, we can move on. But starting over again isn't an option."

Wash looked down.

"Somehow, I knew you were going to say that," he said. He was quiet for a moment. "But don't think I'm going to give up."

He spoke suddenly, fiercely, gazing at me unwaveringly.

"Just because I screwed us up the last time doesn't mean I plan to again."

I said nothing back, though my heart was beating wildly. I turned quickly to exit the room but immediately collapsed on the floor before I could leave. "Augh!"

I had moved too fast. My ribs pounded horribly and I grabbed them protectively. "God damn it!"

Wash rushed over to support me and flung an arm around me just as Tucker strode in and immediately glared at Wash. "Ells, what's going on?"

"I'm fine!" I snapped, painfully shaking Wash off and staggering back to the couch by myself.

Wash rolled his eyes. "Right. You can't even turn around without falling. You're perfectly fine."

"I don't need your help," I shot back. Tucker walked forward to stand between me and Wash, and I growled in frustration. "I don't need _your_ help either!" I scowled at the aqua soldier, balling my fists. This was just too much. "There is too much _testosterone_ around here!"

Church walked in carrying some pain medication but stopped as I spat the last sentence.

"Okay, um, I don't think there's anything we can do about that, Eleven," he said, his eyebrows raised. Wash and Tucker were busy shooting daggers at each other with their eyes.

"Yes, there is," I muttered irritably. I knew one person who could save me from all the _men_. "Where's Donut?"

* * *

><p>After convincing the Blues and Wash that I could walk without killing myself, I carefully used the portal—by myself—and tenderly walked toward Red base.<p>

"Donut!" I called.

"Ells, we're in the kitchen!" I heard his voice say back.

I walked carefully into the kitchen an encountered Donut and Caboose having what looked like… a tea party.

"You're just in time for some jasmine tea!" the pink soldier said excitedly. Caboose waved as he happily munched on some cookies. "It'll make your ribs feel better for sure! Jasmine helps soothe bruises!"

I was pretty sure that wasn't true, but I didn't press the matter. I sat down slowly at the table and drank out of the cup Donut handed me.

"How are you feeling, by the way?" he asked, sipping daintily at his own teacup. "We heard about what happened—"

"Wait, wait, wait," I cut him off. Caboose was now dumping cube after cube of sugar in his tea. "First, I need to get something straight. What the hell happened when Wash and I left?"

Donut sighed. "It took us a long time to wake up. And then it took us a long time to realize that you were gone. For a bit, we assumed that you'd just gone over to Red base to check things out. And then you didn't come back. By the time the other Reds, Caboose and I came over here to check for you, Wash had already carried you back unconscious.

"You were out for a long time, Ells. While you were passed out, we returned back to Blue base and Wash explained everything. Meta and the AIs and Tex and all that. We…" he paused, downing his tea in a large gulp rather reminiscent to a shot. "We've got some shit to deal with here."

"Ugh, tell me about it," I groaned. "This whole situation is a disaster. And now the AIs are even more powerful than they were before!"

"And," Donut added. "We can't start looking for them until you get better. That's a bit of a setback." Donut thought for a moment. "Do you think Meta did that on purpose? Beat you up like that?"

"What do you mean, 'on purpose'? It's not like he was accidentally kicking the shit out of me."

"No, I mean, do you think he injured you because he knew it would take you a while to recover, and we can't go looking for them until then?"

"I doubt it. He and O'Malley were planning on killing all of us, so that's probably not it." I sighed. "I'm tempted to tell you guys to go on without me, but I have a feeling a couple of people back at Blue base wouldn't even let me bring up an idea like that."

Donut glanced at me knowingly. "You mean the two over at Blue base who pretty much have hated each other since they got here?"

I buried my face in my hands. "They started fighting while I was unconscious. Well, I guess I wasn't unconscious then. I was just listening to them argue. They… well, they—uh—"

"I'm guessing Tucker wasn't too happy about Wash attacking you," Donut commented knowingly.

I didn't look at him. "He won't be happy if he finds out about last night, either."

Donut choked on his tea. "'_Last night_?'"

"Not like that!" I said quickly, my face reddening. I groaned. "I was just having nightmares, and, apparently, the only way to get me to stop freaking out in my sleep was for Wash to… uh…" I wasn't sure how to go on. "To, like… put his arms around me."

Donut raised an eyebrow. "You mean you were cuddling?"

"No!" I responded sharply. I stopped, struggling for words, as Donut gave me a piercing stare. I crumbled. "…Yes."

"And you were okay with this?"

I glared at him. "I didn't even know he was doing it until I woke up. And then I freaked out at him. So, no. I was not okay with that. I'm just glad Tucker didn't see it. I don't think I can stand anymore fights."

"You're the only girl in this canyon," Donut said simply. "Something like this was bound to happen."

"Well, it's not making my job any easier," I responded bitterly.

"Come on, Ells, when is this job ever easy?"

"Point."

Donut and I fell silent for a moment as Caboose began blowing bubbles into the cream with a straw.

"I hate feeling like I can't do anything useful," I said, rubbing at my ribs absently. "I hate feeling weak."

"You aren't," the pink soldier insisted. "You're temporarily out of service."

"Great," I responded dryly. This recovery period was going to make me crazy. "So I'm like a plugged up porta-potty."


	19. Recovery One One, Part V

After chastising Caboose for spilling the tea leaves (again), Donut insisted that I remained seated while he cleaned up the tea party. I crankily stayed in my chair while he and Caboose did the dishes and put the extra food away. I didn't like being babied like this.

Sarge strode into the kitchen just as Donut and Caboose finished up, Simmons and Grif close behind him.

"How're those ribs, missy?" he asked gruffly, grabbing a drink from the fridge. "You weren't exactly a sight for sore eyes when you came back from stupidly traipsing after those AIs!"

"I'm sorry, all right?" I said, still rather irritated. "We didn't want you to get hurt!"

"Yeah, and you got hurt instead!" Simmons retorted. "That was _really_ smart."

"Would you guys give it a rest?" Donut cut in, putting on a flowery apron and starting the dishes. "I think they learned their lesson!"

Grif glanced down at my ribcage. "Yeah… but that wasn't the first time something like that happened to you, right, Eleven?"

I sighed. "No. Not the first time."

"So… so what happened before? I mean, your ribs looked pretty screwed up, but Wash said that didn't happen just now."

I clenched my jaw. The last thing I wanted was for them to know the cause of my nightmares. "Just a previous mission that went bad."

The Reds stared at me, waiting for more.

"I'm not talking about it," I continued, frowning. "You know too much already. I was injured, and that's that. End of story."

"I just can't believe it took so long for us to notice it," Simmons murmured. "I mean, it's pretty obvious."

"Thanks," I said wryly. "That makes me feel so much better about it. Maybe I made it a point to hide it from you."

The Reds didn't mention how stupid our decision was again. The Blues, too, must have had that argument while I was unconscious because I didn't get chastised by them either.

Thankfully, my recovery didn't take very long. After all, as Wash had said, my ribs were only bruised and not broken again. By this time, of course, both the Reds and Blues were aware that my ribs had been injured before. I was sure that every soldier in the canyon had taken a nice long look at the deformity while I was passed out. So much for the "secret" part of being a spy.

At least they didn't know how it had happened.

As my bruises faded and I could move around again without killing myself, the Reds and Blues focused on fixing our machinery. We couldn't afford to make contact with Command, so our radios were useless. That was going to be a major drawback. We didn't need O'Malley jumping into anyone else or overhearing any of our distress calls. If the AIs and rogue Freelancers found out we were getting help from Command, they'd surely make themselves even harder to find.

The AIs, Meta, and Tex didn't show up again as we made our preparations to go after them. I didn't know why. O'Malley seemed hell-bent on killing all of us. We, after all, "knew too much," but they just didn't come.

* * *

><p>I stretched out gingerly as I walked toward the Puma. Meta and the AIs had decided to short out the AI tracker on the Reds' car as well while we were all camped out at Blue base. Sarge and Simmons were now working on it. Grif was assisting, too… or, rather, he was supposed to be. Instead, he was sitting in the driver's chair, the seat reclined and his feet up on the dashboard.<p>

"How's it coming, you guys?" I asked, peering beneath the vehicle where the maroon and red soldier lay. I winced only slightly at the pressure this action placed on my ribs.

"Warthog's fixin' up just fine!" Sarge said cheerfully. "Looks like the damage really wasn't that bad after all!"

"Really?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah," Simmons replied. "I just need to fine-tune a few things and it'll be perfect again!"

I frowned. "Wait… why didn't the AIs just destroy the shit out of our vehicles? Sheila seems to be recovering really smoothly over at Blue base, too. We haven't run into any major problems when fixing her."

"I don't know," Simmons shrugged. "They had every ability to completely annihilate both Sheila and the Puma—"

"Simmons!" Sarge snapped warningly.

"Sorry, sir. They had every ability to completely annihilate both Sheila and _the Warthog_. It's beyond me why they'd leave them both so… fixable."

Something wasn't right here. If Meta and the AIs (and now Tex) had been determined to avoid being found, why were we having such an easy time fixing everything?

"Listen guys, just be careful," I said, standing back up and cringing a little again at the dull pain that shot through my torso. "With the AIs' power, I don't think that something like this should happen. We shouldn't be having such an easy time repairing everything."

"Come on, Eleven," Grif yawned. "Stop being so worried. What's the big deal? So they didn't completely screw us over. It was probably a mistake."

Sarge perked up at hearing Grif's voice. "Speaking of mistakes," he barked from beneath the Puma. "_You_ should never have been recruited to my team. Get your lazy ass down here, Grif!"

"Why?" the orange soldier whined. "I'm not going to be any help anyway. I'll probably just break something."

"He's probably right," Simmons muttered. "I don't want him screwing anything up down there."

"Reds! Pay attention!" I interrupted, exasperated. "I'm not being neurotic about this. I've been around the AIs before. I've been around the Freelancers before. Things like this don't happen accidentally. We need to be careful."

The Reds continued to bicker, not paying me any attention. I tried reasoning with them for a while until Sarge threw a wrench at Grif's head, almost hitting me instead. By that time, I knew they wouldn't listen to me. I stalked away in irritation, lost in my own thoughts.

So much of this situation was confusing to me, but I did know one thing: Freelancers didn't make silly mistakes like this. There was a reason we were suddenly able to fix our vehicles so easily. I needed to find out why that was.

And, in the meantime, I had to try not getting us killed.

Easy enough… right?


	20. Road Trip, Part I

Things were going smoothly.

Normally, I would have been thrilled. However, our recovery just seemed… too easy. Soon, Sheila was up and running. The Puma was also fixed. However, we couldn't get the ship in which Wash and I arrived working again, no matter what Sarge and Simmons tried.

All in all, we were stranded on the planet (the AIs had messed with the portals as well) with only two working vehicles and minimal weapons. I didn't like our chances against the AIs, but the Reds and Blues thought this was a huge step forward.

The night we finished putting some last-minute enhancements on the Puma, the Blues came to the Red base for dinner so we could discuss our plan of action. Sarge was none too happy about the "enemies" eating a meal there, but I rolled my eyes and ignored him. His protests had recently turned from fits of anger to irritated grumblings; he knew that the AIs and Freelancers were still the biggest threats.

"We need to stay at least a few more days," I insisted as I cut into Donut's home-made meatloaf. We were all sitting in the Reds' kitchen. "We have to try fixing our weapons more. We only have a handful so far. We'll be no match for Meta and Tex in this state."

"Eleven, we've tried everything," Simmons replied. "The only things we've been able to fix so far are the land vehicles. That's all. According to my calculations, at the rate we're going, it will take us approximately 97.34 earth years to fix everything!"

"Then we're not going," I said stubbornly.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Church protested. "We have to go after them. We have to!"

"Dude, you just want to go to see your dead girlfriend," interrupted Tucker.

"She's not dead!"

"Fine then. I didn't know you were turned on by zombie ghost AIs. Kinky."

"Tucker, leave him alone," I groaned. "Not now, seriously."

"We should just go," Wash said. "We have all the equipment we've been able to fix. I say that we just head out and find them."

"What, just so you can steal the AIs, give them to Command, and leave us to deal with Tex and Meta?" Grif interrupted. "Yeah, man, way to be for the greater good."

"Jesus, this is my job too, don't forget!" I responded irritably. "I'm also supposed to be turning them in, but I don't think we should just go out there blindly!"

"Missy," Sarge grunted. "If we don't go after them now, they're just gonna get farther and farther away. Then they'll be impossible to find and defeat! What in Sam hill do you expect us to do then? If we don't go, we're just gonna be sitting here on our asses doing nothing!"

"Oh, I vote for that option," Grif said, perking up.

Sarge ignored him. "Eleven, if we don't go after them, we're just gonna sit here on our lazy-Grif-asses arguing all the damn time. I say we just find them."

I looked at each of them, and they all seemed to agree with Sarge—save for Caboose, who was busy pretending his knife and fork were ballroom dancing across the table like action figures.

I was outnumbered. "Okay, _fine._ Let's just say I agree to this crazy plan. How do you expect us to find them?"

Simmons opened his mouth to speak, but Donut cut him off, a piece of asparagus dangling dangerously on his fork as he waved it around. "Oh! I know! Wash can show us!"

I frowned. "Wash?"

"Yeah!" Donut continued excitedly to the perplexed-looking Freelancer. "Can't you pick up a trail? Like footprints?"

Wash rolled his eyes. "Footprints. We're in the middle of an inhabited canyon _covered_ with footprints."

"Don't special agents have the ability to track their targets through any kind of terrain?" Donut persisted. "Follow broken tree branches?"

"Tree branches. In an inhabited canyon _covered with broken tree branches_."

"Fine," Donut continued unabashedly. "Maybe that's a bad example. Heat signatures? Like exhaust trails? I don't know!"

"Tell you what? Why don't you just stick with not understan—"

"The hell is wrong with that?" I asked shortly, cutting Wash off before he could complete his snarky remark. "We followed a trail of burnt trees and shit to the AIs last time!"

"Why don't we just use the AI trackers on the vehicles?" Simmons suggested quickly before the argument could escalate. "I think they're working again, so we just need to put them on the right setting, and they should lead us accurately to their location."

"Good idea," Wash said. "At least they don't work using a stupid idea like heat—"

"Um, actually," Simmons interrupted hesitantly. "They theoretically… do. Their technology is based on gas spectrometry and… resident heat signatures."

Wash was rather cranky for the rest of the evening as we made preparations to leave the next day. However, as much as the Freelancer was ornery, Church was elated. He seemed far too excited to be part of a team wandering into certain death. The rest of us seemed relatively serious—even Caboose paid attention when we said we needed his help in persuading Sheila to cooperate—but Church wasn't acting like himself. The possibility of seeing Tex again made him a little giddy, but he would have been mortified if he had known that we had noticed his unusually good mood. Tucker was about to comment on it a couple times, but I smacked him and told him to shut up under my breath. Keeping the Blue leader content was hard enough as it was, and working with him on this mission would be much easier if he were in a good mood—at least at the beginning.

When the Blues, Wash and I had finished packing back at Blue base, we stared at our pathetic pile of supplies. I really didn't know how we would make it out of this alive.

A handful of simulation soldiers, one CIA Agent, and one traitorous Freelancer against a conglomeration of powerful technology, another traitorous Freelancer, and a traitorous Freelancer who _was_ a piece of powerful technology?

_Bring it on._


	21. Road Trip, Part II

( Did someone say... Team Tucker/Team Wash t-shirts?

ask-agent-eleven[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/18910030075

I was halfway joking when I brought this up before, but if I actually see enough interest, then I may go ahead and make these. Take a look and drop me a message if you would want to make a purchase- the price would depend on how many people want to place orders, but I'd like to estimate that they'd be around $16 each. Let me know! :D )

* * *

><p>The next morning, the Reds drove the Puma over to Blue base so that Simmons could reconfigure the AI trackers. Church, Sarge, Wash and Tucker were all assisting the maroon soldier; I could tell they were eager to head out and find the AIs that had caused us so much trouble.<p>

Personally, I had thought that all my problems would be over once the Director was nice and tucked away in jail. Unfortunately, that hadn't been the case so far; these AIs were being a real pain in the ass. It didn't help that they had two of Project Freelancer's strongest soldiers on their side. Besides, I doubted that the Freelancers would allow the AI trackers on the vehicles to work. That would just make things too easy. However, I held my pessimistic tongue.

"Okay, I think they're almost ready!" called Simmons from beneath the Puma. "Go in and turn it on!"

"Bow chicka bow wow."

I rolled my eyes and hopped into the Puma, flicking the AI tracker's switch and watching the lights on the dashboard glow. They flickered for a few moments.

"You gettin' anything?" Sarge asked.

"No, I—" Suddenly, the light flashed green and a pinprick of light on the dash lit up the exact coordinates. "Wait! Yes, it's working! I have the location right here!"

I couldn't believe it. Donut hopped inside Sheila and activated her AI tracker as well; they both led us to exactly the same spot.

"Yes!" Church said, scrambling out from beneath the vehicle. "We are on a roll!"

I didn't voice my opinions regarding this. To me, this was just even more suspicious than before, but the boys had already shut me down, and there would be no point in arguing with them.

"All right, everyone. Hop in!" said Sarge. "Let's go before Grif—"

"I'm already here, Sarge," Grif said with a bored tone as he leaned against the Puma. "You must not know me very well. I'll do any work that involves sitting and doing nothing." He started trying to hoist himself up into the vehicle but stopped as he saw Simmons emerge from beneath it. "Oh, and Simmons?"

Simmons began cleaning his tools distractedly. "Yeah?"

"Shotgun."

"Shotgu—dammit!"

Grif finally pulled himself into the Puma and took the passenger seat smugly as Donut and Simmons squeezed in the back. There was no room for me with the Reds—which was a shame, because I wanted to re-watch _Lost_ with Donut on the way there—so I clambered into one of Sheila's back seats. I knew Sarge wouldn't have had a problem with that, either. He still hadn't seen the last episode.

Church called dibs on driving, and we relented.

"I can feel their draw sometimes," he said in defense of wanting to drive. "I don't know exactly where they are, but I know I can definitely help make sure we're in the right direction with the tracker."

We didn't fight that. We needed all the help we could get.

Then, Sheila had made some interesting demands in return for cooperating with us. She insisted that Caboose stay in one of the front seats so she could talk to him more easily. It was at the same time sickeningly cute and absolutely irritating.

That left me, Tucker and Wash crammed in the back.

Just what I wanted.

I ended up sitting between the two soldiers so that they could have more leg space, but I was not happy about the seating arrangements. True, having the two sit on either side of me would dispel potential arguments, but… I really wasn't in the mood to deal with either of them at the moment. Furthermore, according to our trackers, getting to the AIs, Meta and Tex would take hours. Lovely.

As we got buckled in, Church started Sheila up and we began following the Reds in the Puma. I could already hear their vehicle's music—what was that, polka?—and we all shut the windows promptly.

"Are we there yet?" Caboose asked. We all groaned. We had moved about ten feet.

This was going to be a long ride.

* * *

><p>I knew it was inevitable that arguments would spring up. With Church's bad temper, Caboose's incessant talking to Sheila, Tucker's distaste for Wash, and Wash's annoyance with Tucker all holed up in one tiny tank compartment, things were bound to go awry.<p>

"You can't be serious," Tucker complained about an hour into the drive as Church put on his music. "This sucks."

Church looked at Tucker through one of the rear-view mirrors. "Driver picks the music, passenger shuts his cake hole."

They continued to squabble pointlessly until Sheila threatened to eject them both from their seats if they didn't shut up. We certainly didn't want to find out whether or not she was bluffing, so their fighting turned to whispers.

As they quieted down, my yawns started becoming more frequent. I was exhausted but determined not to doze off. The night before, I hadn't gotten enough sleep; I was too nervous for the coming day. Now, I needed to be awake in case anything happened with the AIs. We were still far away from them, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was very, very wrong. I knew Wash shared my sentiments—as a Freelancer himself, he knew that everything so far had been too easy—but he wanted those AIs.

I couldn't blame him for that. Not really. If I had been thrown in jail, I would want to do anything I could to get out of it too.

My eyes fell halfway closed as the tank fell silent, both Tucker and Church relatively satisfied with the music choice. Church was still muttering something under his breath, but he did that so often it was easy to ignore him. I shook myself quickly to stay awake, but my head began nodding a few minutes later. I could… I could just rest my eyes… not fall asleep…


	22. Road Trip, Part III

"What are you staring at?"

"Nothing."

"Mmm… looks like someone's jealous."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Shut up!"

"Would you guys quiet down? You're drivin' me up the wall!"

Hearing these voices, I woke up and slowly realized what I was doing.

_Dammit!_

In falling asleep, my head had dropped to the side on the aqua soldier's shoulder. Although it had actually been quite comfortable, I jumped and brought my head up quickly.

"I'm awake!" I gasped, cricking my neck.

Church chuckled. "Good going. You woke her up."

I looked to either side of me and rolled my eyes exasperatedly. Tucker was gazing at Wash with a smug smirk on his face while the Freelancer looked about ready to explode in anger.

The two said nothing, but I glared at Tucker.

"Stop being a dick!" I whispered, perfectly aware that everyone in the tank could hear me.

"What?" Tucker shrugged, his satisfied little smile still aimed toward Wash. "Looks like you had a nice nap."

"Shut up."

"Aw, come on, Ells," Tucker grinned, his eyes still on the gray-and-yellow soldier. "You even scooted against me when you were cold. Don't be ashamed."

Wash growled, and I groaned.

"Tucker," I glowered. "Shut your trap or I'll punch it in."

He kept smiling. "Empty threat. You like me too much."

"You think I'm bluffing? Remember the last time you pissed me off?" I flicked the small scar before his eye lightly. "I didn't hesitate beating you then."

Tucker opened his mouth to respond when Church cut him off.

"Oh, look at this, guys," he said emphatically, pointing to the dashboard. "Looks like we're getting close."

I looked away and saw the direction in which we were heading. Most of the time we had been driving, we had followed the Puma across relatively flat and dry terrain. However, the AI trackers were leading us to the edge of another large forest. The Reds and Blues stopped their vehicles at the edge of the greenery, the trees too close together for the vehicles to go any farther.

"A forest again?" I groaned, glad to change the subject. "Unbelievable."

"Come on, let's go," Wash said, stepping out of the tank the instant it stopped.

We all congregated at the edge of the forest, peering into the darkness uneasily.

"Damn, the forestry is even worse on this side of the planet," I commented to the others. "There's no way we can go in there with the tank or the Pu—Warthog."

"They're sneaky," Church said with an irritated sigh. "They know they can't be found easily all the way over here."

"My question is why they haven't left yet if they want to stay away from us," Wash said, frowning. He was still pissed off. "They should be halfway across the galaxy right now. It's a wonder the AI trackers led us to someplace on this planet."

"Maybe they're having technical problems," Grif suggested, lying lazily in the Puma. "That would definitely stop them from leaving."

"They have all these AIs on their side," Simmons replied, shaking his head. "They would be able to help fix the ship in about two seconds unless they crash-landed on the planet or something."

I interrupted them. "Let's not jump to conclusions yet, guys. Let's just be careful in this investigation, considering we don't have all our weapons and stuff."

We gathered all the equipment we had and left Sheila in the company of the Puma. She was not happy about that until we decided to let Caboose stay with her. We felt safer leaving him behind anyway. O'Malley had already jumped inside him before, and, though I hadn't seen it, that was an event I could definitely live without experiencing.

The rest of us trudged into the forest with our equipment, straining our eyes to see a flash of white or black armor. I tried not to show how nervous I was; the different shades of Red and Blue didn't exactly blend in with the greenery.

For once, we were all quiet. The only sounds I could hear were each soldier's feet crackling branches and leaves. It wasn't normal. I couldn't even hear any alien animals or bugs going about their daily lives. It was as if… as if they had abandoned the area.

Suddenly, I heard a noise. All of our heads turned in the same direction as we peered through the darkness, our weapons at the ready. I could hear distinct footsteps approaching us; we had a human visitor. I glanced worriedly over at the others as I held my gun up, ready to shoot at a moment's notice.

From the darkness of the forest, a black-armored soldier appeared before us. I glanced quickly over at Tucker just to make sure that the person who approached us wasn't him, but he was standing not three meters from me, his armor completely aqua. I heard Church gasp from behind me. The soldier appeared in front of us, any weapons tucked away but arms crossed and hip jutted to the side. I recognized the gesture. Church had taught me that move back when we had been trying to deceive the Director.

"Buenos dias, cockbites."

"T- Tex?" Church stammered. "It's really you?"

"Of course it's me. It's going to take a little more for me to die, I guarantee it."

Church was about to put his weapon down, but Wash stopped him.

"Hold on a second," he said, his eyes never leaving Tex. "We don't know that yet. Even if it is Tex, she might have O'Malley. Meta might be close by. This could be a trap."

"Would I do this if it were a trap?" Tex asked, now irritated. She ripped off her helmet and I instantly recognized her face. It was really her. Church let out an undignified squeak of amazement.

"Where's O'Malley?" Sarge demanded. "How do we know he's not with you?"

"My radio's off," she said simply, and showed us her radio to prove it.

"H—How the hell…" Church trailed off, his hands shaking. "What the…"

"Listen," she said. "It's really damn stupid for you idiots to be out in the open like this. Meta could find you any second… and if I hadn't gotten you first, you'd probably already be dead. I'll explain everything once we find a safer location."


	23. Road Trip, Part IV

"A safer location?" Simmons asked.

"Yes. Now stop gaping like you've never seen a girl before and let's get going."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, because you're the only girl here."

Tex stopped and looked at me as though for the first time. She stared.

"You," she said softly. "You survived." Her eyes flickered down to my rib cage.

"It's been a while," I replied stonily. "I've had the time to."

"Apparently."

She turned and strode off through the woods, and Church ran to catch up, falling into step beside her. She didn't seem to take much notice of him, though he attempted to start up a conversation with her. I was about to go up and join them—I wanted to speak to Tex more myself—when a maroon arm reached out and grabbed my shoulder from behind, slowing me down.

"What the hell was that?" Simmons asked me. The other Reds and Blues were watching me, wide-eyed. "Was she talking about—"

"Simmons, I really don't want to discuss this right now," I interrupted irritably. "Haven't you all had enough of gaping at my ribs?"

"How does Tex know about it though?" Grif asked. "The only way she could is if it happened… happened…"

"Happened during Project Freelancer," Wash finished flatly. I glared at him.

"You—you went to Project Freelancer?" Donut yelped. "You never told us that!"

"There was no reason for you to know," I said. I looked over at Church, whose face was emotionless.

"No reason?" Donut repeated, amazed. "Are you joking? You couldn't have at least let us know at one point that you went to visit the place?"

"Oh, don't sugar-coat it," Tex said, not turning around from her lead. "She didn't just come and see what was happening. It wasn't a field trip. She worked there."

Silence.

"Wh… why didn't you tell us this?" Simmons gaped.

"It's what comes with being a secret agent, if you haven't noticed. There's a reason you guys don't know anything about me."

It was true. Through the time I spent with the guys, I had never wanted them to know what had happened to me. First, they found out about my ribs—that was bad enough, but had I figured they would notice the uneven bones eventually.

However, I had been keeping my previous missions a secret on purpose. I didn't want them to know what had happened. I certainly didn't want to force those memories upon my friends. Having them in my own mind was bad enough.

"We know plenty about you, missy!" Sarge objected.

"Yeah?" I challenged. "What's my real name then?"

They fell quiet again.

"Listen," I said to them. "There are things about me you are better off not knowing."

"But—"

"No! I don't want to hear you asking me about this again, do you understand?"

They nodded silently and continued following Tex. I made sure to avoid any eye contact with the two Freelancers.

"Tex, where are we going?" asked Church, changing the subject. "Our vehicles are in the opposite direction. That's where we'll be the safest."

"That may be so, but that's exactly where Meta will expect you," she said.

"So he knows we're here too, then? "

"You're kind of hard to miss, especially with how freaking loud you idiots always argue."

We continued walking through the greenery, but I didn't have a good feeling about this. I didn't like being so far away from the Puma and Sheila. I knew Sheila would be able to protect Caboose if Meta showed up, but I wished we could have that extra protection as well.

We seemed to be going toward a deeper and darker part of the woods. I wasn't sure I liked this, but I fingered my gun protectively and followed the black soldier, staring at her suspiciously from behind. Once or twice, I caught Wash's eye and knew he and I both didn't feel something was right.

She led us to a small patch of trees and sat down. We did as well, and I perched on a rock where I could observe everyone equally.

"Okay, I need an explanation right now," I said. "What's the meaning of all this? Why are you back?" My tone wasn't impolite, but it was firm. Tex looked at me, and I wondered if she were going to challenge my command. However, she just took a deep breath and started talking.

"I'm here for the same reason you are," she said carefully. "I want to bring down the AIs and deliver them to Command."

"Why?" Wash asked, frowning. "You're one of them."

"So is Church," she countered, gesturing to the powder-blue soldier. "I didn't want to come back," she continued icily. "Because of the Director, I don't even know who I really am. So if turning in the AIs means hurting him, then I want in."

"Then why did you take O'Malley?" I asked, perplexed. "And then you ran off with Meta!"

"I had to get on their good sides," she said emotionlessly. "I had to get O'Malley to trust me again. Without him, it will be impossible to capture them. The same goes with Meta."

"But you could hide your thoughts from the AI?" I continued. She nodded, and my eyebrows furrowed. Maybe that wasn't such a large feat for another AI, but for a human, blocking thoughts from the fragments was immensely difficult.

"Where is O'Malley now?" asked Church.

"Meta."

"O'Malley worked his entire plan just to get to you," I said to her. "Wash was just his second choice. Why would he leave so soon?"

She shrugged. "He trusted me."

_Hmm._

"And where's Meta?"

"Looking for you guys somewhere else. We split up and I sent him in a completely different direction."

"How did you know where we were?"

She looked at him disparagingly. "Seriously? You guys are so damn loud the whole forest could hear you. Lucky for you, I caught where you were before Meta did."

"Yes, thank you, we've already discussed how loud we are," I replied frostily. "Now, what's your plan for actually taking the AIs? All we are doing right now is sitting here waiting for Meta and the AIs to find us. If I'm not mistaken, that's not going to do us much good."

"I have a plan," she responded, her voice hard. I had touched a nerve. "Once I go through it all in my mind and finalize it, I'll tell you exactly how we're going to steal the AIs. If we just work together—and you guys follow my lead—we can make it through this successfully."


	24. Road Trip, Part V

When Tex was done explaining herself, I decided we needed to head back to the vehicles. We had left Caboose there for far too long and I was anxious to check on him. True, Sheila could probably defend him better than any of us could, but I didn't want to be this far in the forest for much longer. The shadows seemed darker here. Deeper. It made me nervous.

"Are we finished here?" I said impatiently. "We need to get back."

"I don't think we should go back just yet," she said. "I'm sure Meta will be waiting for you there. We should spend the night here before we check."

"And what about Caboose?" Church asked.

She shrugged. "Sheila could probably defend him better than any of us could."

_Hmm._

As we organized spots on the ground on which to sleep, Tex spoke aloud to the Blues.

"What is it with you guys and getting other girls while I'm gone?" she asked, irritated and not bothering to lower her voice at all.

"Dude, are you seriously going to give her the same lecture you gave Sister? That's really mature," Tucker said.

"Shut up," the black soldier growled. "How would you like for your balls to be permanently removed from your body?"

"Aww, you don't need an excuse to touch them, baby."

I frowned and went over to them, sitting down next to the Blue before Tex could carry out her threat. "Who's Sister?"

"She joined us a long-ass time ago," Church explained. "But we were able to get rid of her. She was really damn stupid."

"Whose sister is she?"

"Grif's."

"That explains a lot," I muttered under my breath.

Tucker laughed. "Yeah, definitely."

"Hey!" Grif interjected. "I know she's dumb, but _you_ can't call her that! You screwed her!"

I glanced at Tucker sharply, and he looked back at me with a nervous laugh.

"You got it on with the only chick in the canyon at the time?" I asked.

He shrugged with a guilty smile, and I raised my eyebrows at him, not amused. Wash was smirking in the background.

"I hope you know you lose points for taste right there."

We laid out a few supplies we had brought with us, Tucker complaining to me copiously.

"Aw, come on, Ells," he was saying as we spread out a couple blankets. "You can't blame me for being a dude."

"No, I can't," I replied, a little miffed. "But I'm having an odd sense of déjà vu. When Grif's sister was here, you went after her because she was the only girl in the canyon. Now, look who's the only girl in the canyon. I see a pattern."

"Hey!" Tex protested. "I'm a chick too!"

"Yeah, but you've got your own relationship issues to deal with," I responded wryly, indicating the powder blue soldier near us. "After seeing you and Church, none of these guys wants to touch you with a ten-foot pole. Right, Tucker?"

I looked at him. Tex had just bent over to set a blanket on the ground and he was staring at her ass.

"Tucker!"

"What?" he said, snapping out of it. "Oh, right. Yeah. Poles."

I smacked a palm to my forehead, standing up and moving away from the aqua soldier. I was feeling rather irritated for some reason.

We eventually settled down, but I knew I wouldn't be sleeping tonight. I removed my helmet for comfort, however, and laid my head against the rock upon which I had perched before.

Just as I heard the Reds and Blues begin to snore, I heard a rustle just near me. I raised my head a fraction of an inch and saw a dark figure moving among us. Tex.

She crept over to where Church was lying and shook his shoulder gently. He jerked awake, but she shushed him and beckoned him silently. He frowned, confused, but followed her as she left and walked deeper into the forest.

The moment they had disappeared from view, I sprang up as quietly as possible and followed them.

"Tex, where are we going?" Church asked her. She didn't answer him but continued to lead him away from our sleeping group. "Tex?"

"I need to talk to you," she said quietly, stopping in a small clearing. "Church, I need your help."

I stopped, hiding in a patch of trees just before the clearing. I had a perfect view of the couple and watched silently.

"Need my help?" Church repeated. "You've never needed my help before. With anything."

She turned to face him. "Times change."

I glanced behind me, my feeling of unease increasing. I had left my weapons and helmet back at our campsite.

"What do you need?" he asked, perplexed. "I can try to help, I guess."

Tex's face instantly melted into a gentle façade. That couldn't mean anything good.

"Church, I don't know who I am," she said. "We've been through this before. The key to finding out my story lies with the Director. If I can get to the Director, then I can find my answers."

"Wait… what?" asked Church. "I thought you said you wanted to bring him down!"

"I don't care what happens to him. All I want is to know."

"You—you lied to us!"

She gazed at him steadily, her gentle demeanor slowly slipping. "Yes, Church. I did."

"So… so you don't really want the AIs?"

She continued her unwavering stare. "Oh, yes. I want the AIs. But not for Command."

Church just gaped at her, uncomprehending.

"Church, the only way we can be powerful enough to get to the Director now is if all the AIs are reunited." She paused. "That includes me… and you."

"Me?"

"Yes. The AIs are obsessed with you. They want Alpha so that they—or, I guess, we—can be reunited and return to the "creator." I don't care about that shit, but I know that if they find the Director, I can get my answers."

"You've been on Meta's side the whole time…" Church said, his voice cracking.

"We don't have to think of it as sides," Tex said, attempting not to sound cold. "Getting all of you away from the bases just made it easier for us. You have fewer defenses out here and can't resist us. Why do you think it was so easy for you to repair your vehicles and track the AIs? We_ wanted_ to be found. We wanted to lure you from the security of your bases and bring you out into the open so we could get you by yourself. Once we have all the AIs in the jail they'll be powerful enough to overtake the facility and break him out again." She watched him. "Church, come with us."

Church hesitated, gazing at the girl he loved, wounded. She had betrayed him and lied to him. Again. And he had fallen for it.

"…No." He shook his head. "Hell no. I'm not going to help that psycho dickhead escape. I don't want anything to do with it."

Tex's eyes visibly hardened. "In that case…" she said, reaching down to her belt, pulling out a handgun, and pointing it between Church's eyes. "I'm not going to ask nicely anymore. You don't have an opinion in the matter. You're coming with me."

I started at the appearance of the gun and sprang into action. I reached down to my armor and grabbed my own weapon, but before I could rescue Church, a hand clapped over my mouth. I began to struggle against it, but froze as I felt a sharp point in the small of my back.

"I wouldn't be using that gun if I were you, my dear," O'Malley's voice whispered in my ear. Through the darkness, I could see white armor gleaming from the arm that had muffled my voice. "Drop the gun and we won't shoot you right in the back."

I didn't move.

"Drop it," O'Malley snarled quietly. "Or we'll kill all your sleeping friends after we're done with you."

_God damn it. _I let my gun fall to the ground. Meta held still, not moving his gun from my back or his hand from my mouth as we watched a now frozen Church and Tex.

"You—you wouldn't really shoot me…" Church said quietly. "You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?" asked Tex fiercely. "I have before, if you don't remember, and I won't hesitate doing it again." She clicked her gun.

"I—I—" Church stuttered. Finally he sighed, resigned. "I suppose I have no choice."

"Good boy," she leered, indicating the trees beside her. "Time to go now, honey. We have a ship waiting for you."

I expected Church to have a Church-ish response. Curse at her, call her a bitch, _something_. But no. Church bowed his head after flashing her a look of utter heartbrokenness and stepped through the forest. I thought I saw her eyes widen a moment at seeing his hurt expression, but the look only lasted a second and she was back to business.

"Meta," she barked gruffly at the trees. "I've got him. You know what to do now."

Meta let out a growly chuckle and, before I had a chance to defend myself, he punched me in the side of the head forcefully. I was ripped from consciousness.


	25. No Longer a Number, Part I

Blackness all around me.

My head felt heavy. As my foggy mind slowly cleared, I opened my eyes and immediately shut them again. The darkness had given away to piercing white, and it hurt my eyes.

I let my eyes slowly adjust to the room in which I now lay. It had starkly white walls. A white ceiling. A television in the corner. Looking down, I saw I was sitting in a rather standardized bed with comfortable blankets. The air smelled of hand sanitizer and bleach, and a constant beeping sound was coming from beside me. I sat up slowly and saw a monitor correlating perfectly with the beating of my heart.

A plump nurse walked briskly through the door, and, upon seeing me awake, gasped in delight.

"Hello, dear!" she said brightly, walking toward me happily. "You're finally awake!"

I frowned at her. The last thing I remembered was Meta restraining me. O'Malley threatening me. Tex kidnapping Church.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"The local hospital," she said kindly, bustling around and checking my vitals.

I looked out the window hesitantly. The sky was blue. One sun hung brightly in the sky, and white clouds floated gently around as well. Below the sky lay a street. The grass was green.

"Wait… I'm on _Earth?_"

The nurse looked over at me, frowning. "Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be?"

"Because—because—" I stammered. What the hell had happened? How did we get rescued from Blood Gulch? Had Hale ordered me home? Where was Church? What about the others? "Was there a rescue or something?"

"That's right," she replied. "Thank goodness the paramedics arrived in time, or we would have lost you. Your car was completely totaled."

I cocked my head, confused at that. "Wait, do you mean the Puma?"

"Honey, the last time I checked my records, you owned a Chevrolet."

What the hell was this lady talking about? "What happened to the others? Are they all right?"

"Others?" the nurse asked me. "There were no others, dear. The street was icy and you spun out of control, crashing head-first into an old office building."

I gaped. "Wait—you're talking about a car crash?"

The nurse stopped what she was doing and gazed at me in pity. "Oh, dear. They warned me that you might not remember anything." She took a deep breath. "Honey, I think you may have amnesia."

"Wha—what are you talking about?" I demanded. I knew exactly what had happened. "I remember everything! We had just tracked down the AIs and the Freelancers tricked us! I think the Reds and Blues are in danger!"

The nurse was looking at me with definite alarm now. She shook her head slowly. "Honey, no. You must have been dreaming. You have been in a coma for weeks now after that horrible car crash. We were almost starting to give up on you. Your family is worried sick."

No. This wasn't possible.

"I'm sorry, but there must be some mistake," I said, attempting to get out of bed. "I wasn't in any car crash. I have to go—"

The nurse stopped me kindly but firmly. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that. You just got out of a coma, and after an accident like that, I have to make sure you are healed before you go."

"But—but the others!" I protested. "I have to help them!"

The nurse watched me steadily. "There were no other people in the car with you, Ellen."

"Wha—Ellen?" I asked. "Who's Ellen?"

The nurse shook her head pityingly. "You are, dear. Your name is Ellen."

"No, it's not!" I said, almost laughing. "That's just a derivation of 'Eleven.' My name is—"

"Do you want proof?" the nurse asked. She shuffled through some papers on her clipboard and handed it to me. "Here's your birth certificate."

I stared at the piece of paper. It was… my birth certificate. Every single bit of information on the sheet of paper was correct… except for my name.

I stared at it. What. The. Hell.

"Ellen _Church?"_

"Yes, honey."

I tried not to panic. This wasn't possible. This wasn't my name.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "Okay, okay," I said. "Is—is there anyone here I know? Someone I can talk to?" I prayed that someone I knew could explain what the hell was happening.

"Why, yes. Your brother is here to see you," she said.

All right. Maybe I could handle this. I had three younger brothers, and seeing any one of them would be perfectly fine with me.

"Which one?" I asked.

"Honey," she responded, shaking her head. "You only have one sibling."

I swallowed and decided not to tell her she was wrong again. That look of uneasiness she had given me after I had mentioned the AIs and Freelancers made me nervous, and the last thing I needed right now was to be checked in at a mental facility. She left, and, a few minutes later, a man walked into the room wearing a powder blue dress shirt tucked into khaki pants.

It was Church.

We saw each other and both gasped—he in delight, and I in shock.

"Ellen!" Church cried, rushing over to me and grasping me into a tight hug. "I knew you'd wake up soon! I knew it!"

What the hell was he doing? He never… _hugged_… people. I tensed up my body in surprise, and he seemed to realize what he had done, because he let go quickly and looked at me worriedly.

"Do you remember me?"

I gulped. "_You're_ my brother?" There was no resemblance between us.

"Yes," he seemed relieved. I had never seen him so… compassionate before. It was freaking me out. I didn't even know Church could have any emotions other than irritation. "Do you remember my name?"

"Church," I blurted.

"Yes," he said slowly. "That's our last name, Ellen. What about my first name?"

"Uh… Leonard."

"Oh, thank God," he said, sighing in relief. "You do remember."

He hugged me protectively again, and, this time, I went along with it. I just needed to play along with this nonsense before I could figure out what the hell was going on.

"Um, Leo," I asked, going out on a limb with the nickname. He smiled when I said that; apparently, I had done so before. "Was I really out for weeks?"

He nodded. "I didn't know if you would ever come back. After the crash, God… I just didn't know if I'd ever see you again. I don't know what I'd do without you. It was especially hard for Dad."

"Uh… Dad…?"

Church was still staring at me intently. "Listen, Ellen, the nurses said the amnesia would take time to get over, but that we can work through this together. You just have to be willing to trust me, okay?"

I frowned. "Okay," I lied.

"All right," he continued. "Do you remember Dad's name?"

I shook my head. "No."

He grinned. "Think really hard, okay? It's a name you've heard before."

I waited for him to go on, still shaking my head.

"Leonard. It's Leonard, too, Ellen. Remember now?"

I closed my eyes for a moment, not wanting to ask the next question.

"You—you don't mean Dr. Leonard L. Church?"

A wide smile split Church's face. "I knew you'd catch on quickly."

Holy shit.

The Director was my father.

There were so many things wrong with this I didn't even know where to start.


	26. No Longer a Number, Part II

I was starting to feel lightheaded, but I blinked furiously and looked back to Church. This was insane. I just… I didn't even know what to think.

"Leo, can we leave this place, please?" the whiteness of the walls was blinding. Everything looked too perfect. Too clean. "Can we just go?"

"Sure," he said. "The nurse just needs to check up on you a little more and we can head out. The only thing that's wrong with you is the amnesia, and I'm sure we can get that fixed soon enough. I just have to reintroduce you to your life."

Oh, God. That sounded so weird.

The nurse re-entered cheerfully, stating that my vitals checked out and that I'd just need a quick examination.

"The doctor will be here in a moment," she said. "You should thank him, too, dear. He's the one who saved you."

"I wouldn't say that," a figure answered her as he walked into the room, chuckling. "I was just helping out the great nurses here."

"Oh, don't be modest," the nurse replied, making room for the man. "You're the best doctor in the city! Do you know how many lives you've saved?"

"All right, that's enough," the doctor strode past her, smiling. "I was just doing my job."

She exited the room and the doctor approached me. He wore a purple lab coat.

"Hello, Ellen. I'm Dr. Frank Dufresne, but everyone around here calls me Doc." He held out his hand to me and I shook it. I recognized the name, though I had never met him before. The Reds and Blues had mentioned some sort of medic from a long time ago in Blood Gulch, but I didn't really know much about the guy. His handshake was unwavering and confident. "You were in quite the situation a couple weeks ago. I'm glad you made it out with just a mild case of amnesia. That should be remedied soon enough."

I nodded. If he really had saved me, I supposed I should be grateful. "Thank you for what you did."

He waved me off with a smile. "Like I said before, I was just doing my job."

"Thank you on my behalf, too," Church spoke up before exiting the room. I didn't want him to leave, but, on second thought, I really didn't him watching any sort of physical examination. "If you hadn't helped her, she would have died."

Doc nodded at Church as he shut the door.

"How are you feeling physically, Ellen?" he asked me.

"Uh, fine, I think," I said, looking down at myself for the first time. I was wearing a baggy hospital gown and couldn't really see myself. I wasn't in a lot of pain, but the side of my head hurt where Meta had punched me. I reached up and searched for a bruise. I couldn't feel anything.

"If you could remove your gown there, I've just got to go through your final examination."

I complied and removed it, and Doc began checking me over.

"Did I get injured in the crash?" I asked him. My body looked completely normal to me.

"Well, yes, but in your time here, you've recovered really well. The only scars you have are from your torn up ribs, but that didn't even happen in the crash."

I looked down at myself again. The right side of my rib cage looked exactly as it had since it had healed from my injury. Noticeably deformed underneath the skin.

"It's hard to believe that you've recovered so well from the crash, but that high school incident is still visible," Doc commented.

I frowned. "High school?"

The doctor glanced at me, sighing in what I imagined was sympathy at my supposed amnesia. "Yes, Ellen. You went through quite an ordeal in high school and sustained your terrible rib injury there."

I raised an eyebrow. Sure I did. "I see."

Doc continued my examination with confidence and steadiness, both characteristics of a skilled doctor. I felt completely secure in his care, even though I still didn't know what was going on. At least I was comforted that he knew what he was doing.

When he had finished, he dismissed me and brought me some of my own clothing that Church had retrieved from wherever I lived. It was a pair of jeans and a simple sky blue blouse whose color matched my armor. Finally, something I recognized.

Doc bid be a good day and left. When I was done changing, I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. This was me. I looked completely the same as I had in Blood Gulch.

Church was waiting for me outside and smiled as I approached him. I certainly didn't feel as though I had just suffered from a terrible car crash. The side of my head was still hurting, though, but that didn't happen here. That had happened on a planet far away from Earth…

"All right, Ellen," Church was saying to me as we stepped through the parking lot. "I'll drive you over to your apartment now. That should help you remember more things."

"Okay." As we reached Church's car, I saw a man standing in the parking lot, watching me intently. He wore an impeccable suit and a small smile on his face. I looked away from him quickly, not wanting to make eye contact. I didn't know him.

Brushing the thought of the staring man from my mind, I stepped inside Church's car and we left the hospital behind us. I looked out the window and observed a city I had never been in before, but it was certainly on Earth. I wondered how far I was from the CIA Headquarters. If I could get there, maybe I could figure out what was happening. First, however, I needed to convince the people around me I wasn't insane.

"Ch—Leo, can you tell me about yourself?" I asked him as we made our way through the town's streets.

"Well, I'm your brother, Leonard. But you already figured that out," he smiled. "I'm glad you woke up on the weekend. I would have had to schedule another substitute teacher if I had to come get you during the week. I'm a preschool teacher on the other side of town."

Church. A preschool teacher_._

"You don't have the patience to teach a bunch of little screaming kids!" I replied, amazed.

"Are you joking, Ellen?" he asked me, hurt. "Come on, people have always told me how patient I am and stuff."

"Yeah, and what a good temper you have?" I asked sarcastically.

"Exactly!" Church said, relaxing. He thought I was serious. "I knew making you remember wouldn't take so long."  
>I knew that arguing with him wouldn't help anything, so I shut my mouth and continued to listen to him talk about how much he loved working with the toddlers.<p>

"Ellen," Church said suddenly after his happy rant had ended. "I brought something with me that might help you remember more. It's in a black box in the glove compartment."

I nodded and took out the small velvet box. It didn't look familiar, so I opened it.

A glittering diamond ring lay inside.

"Wait, are you married?" I asked, frowning. I glanced at his left hand, but no wedding band was present.

Church glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. "Why would Allison's ring be in here? I'm pretty sure I would have told you if we decided to get engaged while you were out cold."

Allison. Oh, Jesus. He was dating Tex.

"I—you're dating Allison?" I asked. "How—how is that going?"

He smiled lovingly. "Same as always. She's such a sweet girl. We still have never gotten into a fight."

Okay. Right.

"Then… then what's this ring doing in here? Whose is it?"

Church sighed. "It's yours."


	27. No Longer a Number, Part III

"Mine?" I squealed. "I'm _married?_"

"No!" Church said, alarmed at my tone of voice. "No, of course not! Your fiancé wouldn't want to marry you while you're in a coma, for goodness sakes!"

I stared at him, my jaw hanging open.

"I—I'm _engaged?_"

Church nodded slowly.

"Who—to whom?"

"Listen, Ellen, he told me explicitly that if there were something wrong with you, he wanted you to see him yourself. After hearing about the amnesia, his request hasn't changed."

"Oh, come on, Leonard. Seriously?"

"I promised him, Ellen. I'm sure you'll recognize him when you see him tonight."

I huffed in frustration. "Fine."

"Listen, Ellen," Church continued, changing the subject. "I was thinking that we might be able to stop by St. Mary's on the way home."

"Who?"

Church watched me patiently. "St. Mary's, the church. One of the priests there is an old family friend, and he's been pretty worried about you."

"Uh… okay," I said hesitantly.

When we reached the church, we stepped inside. It was empty except for a figure near the altar cleaning tediously.

We approached the priest and I recognized the man.

"What the—" I stammered, and he looked up, smiling calmly at us. "_You're_ a priest?"

"Well, look who decided to join us again," Tucker said kindly, no evidence of swagger or seduction in his voice. "Welcome back, Ellen."

I just couldn't stop staring at him.

"You—you gave up an eternity without women?"

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Ellen, I was called to this profession, and so I will carry out my vocation."

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. Tucker devoting himself to a life without getting laid? No. No freaking way.

Church glared at me. "Ellen, don't be impolite."

I stopped abruptly, utterly tempted to laugh again._ Church_ telling _me_ not to be impolite?

"I'm sorry, Father Tucker," I said. Holy shit. _Father Tucker._

Then, something occurred to me.

"Wait…" I said slowly, addressing Tucker. "If—if you—" I stopped, frowning. "Who the hell is my fiancé?"

Church and Tucker were both staring at me, and my face reddened in embarrassment.

"Uh…" I backtracked. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"Maybe you should take her home," Tucker said to Church gently. "She's had to undergo much. She needs some rest."

Church nodded and turned to me.

"Time to go, Ellen," he said, walking back out of the church. "See you later, Father."

"Goodbye," Tucker replied seriously, his eyes trained on me worriedly.

I bid him goodbye and turned away, walking back out of the church with my supposed brother. As we made our way back, my eye was drawn to a figure sitting quietly in the back pew. It was the same man whom I had seen in the parking lot of the hospital; he was watching me calmly in his suit, his face impassive.

I definitely didn't know this man. He continued to stare as I passed, and I tried not to frown as I looked away from him. Maybe it was just a coincidence that I had seen him again.

Once we were back in the car, I picked up the conversation again.

"You know, Ch—Leonard," I said as he drove away from the parish. "Haven't I missed a lot of work since I've been gone?"

"Yes, you have," Church replied. "Everyone's been waiting for you to come back."

"My boss too?" I said hopefully. "The Chairman?"

"The Chairman?" he asked. "No, Ellen, he's the CEO. I don't think he'd call himself a silly title like that."

I fell silent again, thinking. "Leo, where do I work?"

"The Bingle headquarters. You know, the gaming company?"

I stared at him. He had to be kidding me.

"Yeah, and what do I do there?"

"You work for Accounting."

Accounting? How boring.

"Um, when can I go back?"

Church shrugged. "Whenever you feel up to it, I guess. All your coworkers and your boss know what happened, and they're ready to help you integrate into the job again. Don't worry, you aren't unemployed."

That was the least of my problems at the moment.

"Um… Leo?" I asked warily, knowing this was going to sound crazy. "Where exactly is the… you know…" I laughed nervously. "How far are we from the CIA Headquarters?"

Church looked at me strangely. "Why on Earth would you want to know that?"

"I—I'm just curious."

"I don't know, Ellen. It's on the other side of the country."

My heart sank.

"So… I don't work for the CIA, then?" I asked, wincing as I did so.

Church frowned. "Ellen, I know this is really hard for you to grasp, but if you start making things up, I'm going to get really worried. What did you think you were, a spy or something? That you traveled to other planets and reconciled enemies and discovered secret illegal operations?"

…

"No."

"Good. I'm just… surprised at you. You're really not the type to join some sort of secret service at all."

Right. I decided to change the subject. "Are we almost there?"

Church turned into a parking lot at that very moment, and I looked outside to see a tall apartment building.

"Yep. Here we are."

We entered the apartment building and made our way to the eleventh floor. It didn't look familiar in the least. I had never lived or even stepped foot in this place before.

When we entered my apartment—number 11-11, much to my irritation— I encountered a comfortable living area with a single bedroom, kitchen, and all the necessary bells and whistles to a well-loved apartment. Church was watching me expectantly, but I kept my face emotionless as we strode inside.

"Do you remember now?" he asked quietly.

I shook my head, wracking my brains. Never had I seen this furniture, taken these pictures, or decorated these walls. I was a stranger in my own home.

I faced the apartment, really struggling not to panic now. This couldn't be my life. Not really. I could remember everything about myself. My childhood, attending high school, going to college, joining the CIA. Working at Project Freelancer. Transferring to Blood Gulch. It was clear as a bell in my mind. I knew my family. My real name. My real life.

This wasn't it.

Church watched me as I explored the area. I ripped open a closet, and it was filled with clothing, most of which were my characteristic shade of blue. At least this was familiar.

In the bedroom, I continued hunting around. I obviously lived here with someone else—the large bed easily fit two people and I could see the indentations in the mattress that two bodies had imprinted. After perusing the bathroom, I discovered some Axe and Gillette shaving cream.

…That meant that I lived with a man.

Oh… shit. my fiancé.

I went back to the bedroom, looking for another closet. If all of my clothes were the color of my armor, then all of his clothes were too. That would be indication enough of his identity.

"Hey, Ellen?" Church called hesitantly before I could locate any male clothing. "Do you want to go and see your neighbors now? That might help you. They're all worried."

"Are they all my friends?" I asked.

Church nodded. "Yes, you've become quite close to them. Come on, I'll show you."

I didn't really want to meet a bunch of new people, but I was afraid saying no would make Church even more worried about me.

"All right. Let's go."


	28. No Longer a Number, Part IV

I nervously walked beside Church to the neighboring apartments, utterly unsure of who would be here. I would have guessed that I lived in the same building as the Blues—since that was what happened in Blood Gulch—but that couldn't be true anymore now.

"Right here," Church said at apartment 11-12. I knocked lightly and heard footsteps approach the door and open it.

"Hello, Leonard! Ellen!"

"S—Sarge!" I gasped.

I had no idea how to react to this. Any evidence of Sarge's obsession with the military had completely disappeared. He looked no longer like a drill Sergeant; instead, he was sort of… uh…

"Glad to see you back!" he boomed, grasping me in a tight hug. I couldn't help but stiffen up at that. No. Sarge was not a hugger. "Would you like to come in? Dick is here too, and we were just wondering when you'd be back!"

"I—all right," I said, trying not to stare at him. He wore a baggy red t-shirt, a peace sign stamped across it. All around his apartment hung anti-war posters and images of Woodstock.

"Now, how much of me do you remember?" he asked cheerily, leading us to the kitchen. Did _everyone_ know about my amnesia?

"Not this," I admitted, completely floored. "Um, remind me why I know you as Sarge?"

"Oh, Ellen, you of all people should remember this!" he laughed. Had I ever heard Sarge laugh before? "You gave me this nickname just to tease me!"

"To tease you?"

"Of course!" We entered the kitchen and a figure wearing maroon was sitting at the table sipping some orange juice and staring, frustrated, at the laptop in front of him. "You and the others on this floor know well how much I hate war, so you just named me that to tick me off!" He didn't seem bothered by it at all and shrugged. "I got used to it."

"Uh… okay…"

"Hey, Ellen and Leonard," Simmons said to us from the table, an irritated edge to his tone. "You feeling better?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Uh, yeah, I am, uh… Dick. What's wrong?"

"I just don't understand!" he complained. "I can't get my computer to open the Internet!"

I stared as Sarge went over and taught Simmons, step-by-step, how to open the window that would allow him to access the Web.

"See, buddy?" Sarge said, clapping a hand over his shoulder. "It's easy."

"Oh my God, I am never going to remember that!" Simmons said nervously. "It's so complicated!"

I couldn't stop staring. I probably looked rude. "You—you're having trouble with your computer?"

"I can't do anything right with this thing!" Simmons continued. "I don't know how people can use them every day. I'm so bad with mine!"

I was about to respond when we heard a loud and confident knock at the door.

"It's open!" Sarge called as he taught Simmons how to type on Microsoft Word.

A young man strode in, and I gasped.

"D—Donut!" I said, my jaw dropping. He had a full beard and mustache. What the… "Um, hi!"

"Oh, hello, Ellen," he said calmly after bidding Church hello and shaking my hand. The hell? Where was my bone-crushing hug? "Though the last time I saw you, you called me Franklin."

"You're a resident on this floor too?" I asked, trying not to stare at his facial hair.

"Yes. I'm glad you remember that much," he said with a small smile. He was wearing messy, baggy overalls and dirty boots. Never in my life had I seen Donut in such a scraggly mess.

"I… guess I don't remember anything else," I continued, a little crestfallen at his lack of enthusiasm. "Would you mind giving me a couple hints?"

Donut smiled calmly again. "I'm a plumber, Ellen. There's nothing I like more than getting down and dirty and messing around with the sewage system." The boys laughed appreciatively as if Donut said this type of thing every day. "I can't stick around for long, though, guys. The misses is making some beef stew. Thank God I have her around."

"Yeah," Simmons smirked. "If you didn't have your wife to cook for you, you'd probably be starving. Or dead."

"Listen, I know I'm a bad cook, but you don't have to rub it in!"

Donut. Dirty. Manly. Married to a _woman._

I must have turned a shade of green because Church, who had been standing by the kitchen doorway watching me quietly, suddenly perked up, alarmed.

"Ellen, are you all right?" he asked, walking toward me. I swayed somewhat, feeling faint.

"I—I don't know…" I said, swallowing hard.

"Um, I think it's time to head back," Church replied, grabbing my arm. "Sorry about this, guys. I think… I think she's a little overwhelmed."

_No shit._

I managed to stutter out a stream of semi-polite goodbyes, but my neighbors gazed at me concernedly as we left.

"Church, I don't know why this is happening," I said quietly, plopping down on the couch when we reached my apartment, shaking a little. "This is all wrong. My life. I don't remember it like this."

"That's the second time you've called me by our last time," Church frowned, sitting beside me. "I know this is going to take a while, but I know you can adjust. It's just been a long day for you. You need to sleep."

"No," I disagreed. "I have to meet him. My fiancé. Since you won't tell me who he is."

"He made me promise, Ellen," Church chuckled, squeezing me in a slight hug. "You'll see him tonight."

"When is he coming home?"

Church checked the time. "Don't know. A couple hours, maybe."

I groaned. "That's such a long time…" I yawned.

"Why don't you take a nap?" Church asked. "I have to get going soon, anyway. I have so much grading and class planning for tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow? Monday?"

"Yeah."

"Can I go to work, then?" Maybe I didn't work at the CIA, but if Hale was somehow involved at Bingle, maybe he could tell me what was happening. I was sure he would be sane in all this nonsense.

"Only if you remember how to get to the office building."

"I do," I lied.

"Okay then, you can go. But, for now, you really do need to rest. You look exhausted."

I yawned again. I really was tired. And confused. And perplexed. And every iteration and synonym of the word.

"Okay, Ch—Leonard. He'll wake me up when he gets home, right?"

"I'm sure he will." Church gave me a quick squeeze and stood up, heading for the door. "I'll check up on you later, okay? Call me if you need anything. Your cell phone is charging in the kitchen."

I nodded. "Thanks, Leo. Thanks for all the help."

He smiled tenderly. While that was a damned weird look for me to see, I smiled back. "No problem. Sleep well."

When he left, I had to practically drag myself to the bed and lie down. I was too tired to do anything else. Within a few moments, I drifted off, unable to think any more about this crazy universe I had woken up to.


	29. No Longer a Number, Part V

( Single chapter update this week, everyone. Sorry about that. I should also let you know that I will probably not be posting any chapters next week. Reality is... consuming me at the moment. When I come back, however, I promise it'll be worth the wait! :D -Stella

P.S. Regarding_ Before the Recon_, I've been getting a lot of concerned messages regarding North's armor enhancement. Seriously, I know my writing might sound crazy at certain points, but I actually know what I'm doing sometimes. Just trust me, okay? :] )

* * *

><p>Sun streamed into my eyes the next morning, jerking me abruptly from sleep. I didn't open my eyes right away. Church was in the base's kitchen making coffee right about now, I was sure. Hopefully he had saved some for me before Caboose decided to feed some to Sheila through her gas tank again.<p>

I opened my eyes and was not in my room at Blue base.

The previous day's events rushed into my mind, and I gasped, sitting straight up and looking around. I was in this apartment. The apartment Church claimed was mine.

Church, my brother.

I still didn't believe it. I didn't remember it.

Glancing around the bedroom, I realized that the other side of the bed was wrinkled and unkempt. My fiancé had slept here. He was somewhere around.

I leapt out of the bed, rushing around and attempting to find the mysterious figure in the apartment, but he was nowhere to be found. It wasn't until I checked the kitchen for the second time that I saw a quick, handwritten note:

_Hey, Ellen—I was so happy to come home to you safe and sound. I didn't want to wake you, so we'll talk tonight when we both get home from work. Love you! –D_

I stared at the note. There was only one person I could be betrothed to now.

I swallowed hard and left the slip of paper sitting on the table, not quite sure how to react. I didn't want to think about it. I made sure to change quickly into some nice business attire, grabbing a laptop that could only be mine (it had a sky blue case) and Googling where the Bingle office building was. I printed out the directions and grabbed a granola bar from the pantry on my way out, determinedly thinking about anything else but who shared this apartment with me. I just needed to focus on figuring things out now. I couldn't afford to get distracted.

Entering the apartment complex's parking lot, I remembered the nurse telling me I owned a Chevrolet. Grinning, I pressed the lock button on my keys in the direction of a gorgeous classic Corvette, but that was certainly not the car that honked back at me.

I stared, pressing the lock button again to make sure I wasn't missing anything. My car was no beautiful Stingray convertible, but a shitty, oversized Chevy Sierra. A pickup truck.

Groaning and gazing wistfully at the Corvette, I entered the truck and turned the keys in the ignition, hoping they wouldn't work.

They did.

I sighed and made my way through the city's streets to Bingle, chastising myself for expecting better. When I reached the enormous Bingle headquarters, I parked my awful car and entered the building, heading straight toward the front desk. A map indicated Accounting was on the top floor quite close to the CEO's office. And, of course, the top floor was the eleventh. Typical.

I reached the top floor and tentatively stepped out of the elevator, wondering where to go next. The floor was comprised of a number of roomy cubicles, and I had no idea which one was mine. However… knowing the pattern of numerical events that had happened around here, I could probably guess.

I walked along the rows of cubicles, stopping in front of cubicle 011. The plaque read ELLEN CHURCH.

I rolled my eyes and settled myself into what was apparently my office. Had no one noticed how that number had been haunting me here?

I sat down and opened my laptop, guessing the password correctly and proceeding to check my emails. After going through what work I needed to get done, I found my initial suspicions had been right: Accounting _was_ dull.

"Hello there, Ellen!"

I jumped and spun around. A man was leaning over from the cubicle next to mine, his eyes startlingly blue. He smiled happily at me.

"Remember me? I heard you got a nasty bout of amnesia there, but you've got to remember me! I mean, we've only been working together, for, what, years now? I don't even remember. Anyway, how have you been? I'm surprised you even made it here at all, what with not remembering anything. That would be bloody awful, that would. I don't know how you can deal with that. I can hardly make it here myself, and I take the rail!"

I stared at the rambling man, my jaw hanging open rudely as he continued babbling. Now I was encountering people I had definitely never met before. I went through every CIA Agent I had ever met in my mind, but not one matched the face of this man.

I interrupted his speaking when I figured he wasn't about to stop.

"Um, I'm sorry, but who are you?"

"Aw, I can't believe you don't remember!" He held out his hand. "I'm Wheatley, Ellen, remember now?"

I shook his hand, still utterly baffled. "Oh, um, hello. Nice to see you again."

"Like I was saying, you've probably got a minor case of serious brain damage. Not to worry, though, not to worry. You can't get it as bad as those over in Product Testing. I heard that their abilities to speak—"

"Uh, Wheatley, how does everyone know I have amnesia?" I asked him. "Isn't that sort of a private thing?"

"Chell over in Product Testing told me," he said seriously. "You know how she talks."

"Sure," I said slowly. "Listen, can I talk to our boss? Do you know where he is?"

"You want to talk to the boss?" Wheatley said. "Yeah, he's in his office, of course. Always is. Just down the hall over there. He's bloody intimidating, though. Brilliant, though. Never met a smarter man in my—"

"For the love of God," came a monotonous voice from the cubicle on the other side of Wheatley's. "Some of us are trying to work. Do you ever shut up?"

I peeked over and a severe-looking woman was glancing critically at Wheatley, pretty much ignoring me.

"Oh, stop being such a stiff, Glados!" Wheatley replied. "You work so much you're almost like a robot or something."

She rolled her eyes. "Just shut up, you moron."

Wheatley's face darkened at that. "I am _not_ a moron."

I decided that it would be best to leave my two arguing coworkers at that point, and I made my way down the hall Wheatley had indicated. I reached the large office door labeled "CEO" and knocked nervously, hoping against hope that Hale would be sitting at the desk.

"Come in," a voice said from inside.

I opened the office door, expecting my boss to be some serious, intimidating, academic-looking figure.

It was Caboose.


	30. No Longer a Number, Part VI

"Hello, Ellen," Caboose said calmly. "Why don't you take a seat?"

I blinked. That was the most normal thing I had ever heard him say. I tried not to stare as I sat down in front of him.

"Um…" I was speechless. "I… I'm a little confused."

He nodded seriously. "This is not unanticipated given the severity of your accident."

My eyes widened even more. Caboose had just spoken in words longer than two syllables.

"I—you're the CEO of Bingle, Ca—Mr. Caboose—right?"

"Yes. I am pleased to hear that you remember that at least. Would you like a debriefing on your reintegration to the company? Our department for the recovery of employees in accidents is excellent and will assist you in relearning your skills."

"Um… I… I don't think…."

"Ms. Church," Caboose interrupted me, frowning. "Do not speak with such a stutter. It is unprofessional."

I jumped with surprise and my face reddened. Caboose had just chastised me. And it had been… daunting. This was so, so wrong.

After Caboose told me firmly what my duties and responsibilities were, I had learned exactly what Wheatley had been talking about. This Caboose was… intelligent. His entire company was a well-oiled machine and was apparently very profitable. My "boss" was filthy rich.

I was still having a hard time comprehending all of this.

After an excruciatingly long day at work (it was difficult to concentrate amid Wheatley and Glados arguing for hours), I finally exited the building and returned to the Bingle parking lot. Just as I reached the truck, however, a figure caught my eye.

A tall figure in a suit.

It was that man again. This was the third time that I had seen him, and he still had that emotionless stare directed at me. He was making me nervous. Why didn't I recognize him? Why did I keep seeing him everywhere?

I pretended not to notice him as I unlocked my car, but I chanced a glance at him as we locked eyes. I looked away quickly, not wanting him to know that I had seen him. However, just as I entered the car, our gazes met again. He hadn't looked away from me. He was still staring and I could feel his eyes on me as I pulled out of the parking lot.

As I drove away from the man, I watched him through the rear-view mirror. He hadn't moved an inch, but I could have sworn I saw him chuckle.

* * *

><p>My heart was pounding as I made my way up the building and to the apartment again. It was late enough, and my fiancé was probably home.<p>

The prospect of meeting him terrified me. It was silly, but I was jittery with anxiousness to find out what he was like without the burdens the military had placed on him. I wanted to know what his personality was outside the rules and restrictions and protocol. Here, there was no way that he had a criminal record. He probably had never been to jail and was totally and completely sane.

I didn't even know what my own feelings were regarding the matter, but I avoided thinking about it. All I knew was that I wanted to simply meet him and I'd figure out the rest from there.

When I reached the apartment, I barged in.

"Hello?" I called out curiously.

I received no response. I was still alone.

"Damn it," I muttered, checking the kitchen. The note was still where I had left it and nothing had changed since I had exited the apartment. How long was I going to have to wait here?

I began hunting around the apartment more thoroughly. There were no pictures anywhere in the house of my fiancé, so that didn't help. I started searching through cabinets, looking for pieces of mail that might have his name on them. I just needed to reassure myself of his identity.

As I was digging through the recycling bin, however, I heard the door unlock and I practically ran to the entrance.

"Hey, Ellen!"

A man walked into the apartment. He wore an orange tank top and gym shorts, and he was completely ripped. Every muscle was defined in detail and he was practically bursting through his shirt. I glanced at his finger.

There was definitely a ring on his left hand.

My jaw fell open as Grif approached me.

"Holy shit!" I squealed, almost tripping and skidding on the floor. "I can't marry _you!_"

The smile slipped from Grif's face and he stopped. "Wh—what?"

Church entered the room from just behind Grif, smacking a palm to his forehead and looking none too pleased with me.

"Wh—this—I can't—" I was stuttering, staring at Church.

"Dexter, don't worry about this," Church reassured Grif, walking toward me. "We shouldn't be surprised that this happened. She just needs time to adjust."

I continued shaking my head. "No. I don't love him. I could never marry him!"

"Ellen, quiet down!" Church said fiercely, dragging me away from a heartbroken-looking Grif. "You're hurting his feelings!"

"Church," I retorted as we entered the kitchen. "I am not going to marry someone I don't love. That's just stupid. I have no recollection of this."

"That's because you haven't even given yourself a chance!" Church said, exasperated. "I see you. Every time I introduce something to you, you pretend like you're taking it in. You pretend like you believe me, and you act like you think this is all true. Listen to me. _This is your life_. You're going to have to accept that fact one way or another, so don't try to break Dex's heart while you're at it or you'll have to fix the broken pieces of your life before you even remember it's yours!"

The remark I had been dying to emit halted in my throat. There was no use fighting him. I swallowed and nodded, and he squeezed my arm gently before leading me back to Grif.

When I saw my fiancé again, I instantly felt guilty. He looked hurt and worried and hesitant as I walked toward him. There was no way in hell that I was going to marry Grif, but I could at least try not to hurt him any more than I had. When I reached him, I smiled and gave him a hug.

"Do you remember me, Ellen?" he asked worriedly, hugging me back. When the hell had Grif ever worried about anything?

"Well… yes." That wasn't a lie. I did know who he was. Just… not like this. "But… can you tell me more about yourself?"

"I'll leave you two alone," Church said. "Dex, thanks for letting me be here for this. I thought I'd need to come, and I was right." He walked over to me and spoke in a low voice. "I called in to work for you, Ellen. Tomorrow, you're coming with me instead. I'm taking you to a specialist."

I didn't have time to resist this bit of news before Church disappeared through the door, so I just glared at him before turning my attention to Grif and lightening my face so he wouldn't feel badly.

"Come on, I'll make some dinner, and then we can talk," Grif said with a smile. "Man, this place really is a mess, isn't it? I'll have to clean up a little after we eat."

I looked around the apartment, and it didn't look untidy to me. I raised an eyebrow and shrugged, following him to the kitchen.

Over dinner that night—Grif had made salad, steamed vegetables, and organic chicken, to my shock—I learned all about my fiancé. He was a physical trainer. He worked out every day and refused to eat junk food. His daily hobbies included cleaning the house until it shined and staying active.

_Active._

My brain was starting to really hurt now.

That evening, once we had changed, gotten ready to sleep, and cleaned the apartment a bit, we both climbed into the bed. I tried to act normally, so I laid still as Grif drifted off.

In his slumber, Grif stretched and put an arm around me, pulling me closer to him. I didn't resist for fear of waking him up, but there was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep like this.

A horrible thought struck me as I listened to Grif snore.

What… what if all that had happened to me—my whole life—had really been a dream? Maybe this really was amnesia.

_Is this really my life?_


	31. No Longer a Number, Part VII

The next morning, I woke up from a restless sleep still next to Grif. Still not back at Blood Gulch. Without complaint, I got out of bed, shared casual conversation with my fiancé, prepared to start the day, and we departed at the same time. In the parking lot, he hugged me goodbye, a look of concern still on his face. He knew I was faking normality. I was glad that he didn't try to kiss me—I probably would have slapped him out of reflex.

Besides… kissing Grif… ew.

Church picked me up just as Grif pulled out of the lot and I entered the car.

"I don't need a specialist," I said instantly.

"Dr. Dufresne said that this might happen," Church continued. "I need to take you to a therapist so you can start remembering everything right. I'm not going to let you break Dexter's heart."

"Ch—Leo, I do remember everything. I just don't remember everything like this."

"I don't understand."

"I know all of you, but the way things are… it's just wrong. You're not supposed to be a patient, compassionate preschool teacher. You're irritable and an asshole to everyone."

"Ellen! I—"

"Then, Tucker would never be a priest. He loves women too much. He would never give up sex. For anything. He and I… well. It's just not right. Donut is not manly, Simmons should be working in tech support, and Grif is lazy as hell! Why can't you understand this?"

Church sighed. "Ellen, you and I both know this is getting ridiculous," he said. "You can't keep living like this. Making up stories. This is going beyond just simple amnesia. I'm starting to think you're suffering from delusions."

I was quiet at that. If this really did happen to be my life, then I _was _delusional. I had given it my best shot. He didn't believe me.

We were quiet the rest of the way there, and I looked up only as I sensed we were pulling into another parking lot.

I frowned, looking at the daunting building. "Leo, why are we at a police station?"

Church glanced at me. "I'm not taking you to jail, don't worry. The best psychiatrist in town doubles as a police officer."

I followed Church tentatively inside the station. He led me down the hallway until we reached a door marked _Psychiatric Office_.

"Okay, it's just in here," he said to me. "I'll pick you up when your session is over." Without another word, he left me alone to enter the door.

I walked into the psychiatrist's office and almost choked on my own saliva. A man looked up at me wearing a gray suit and yellow tie.

"What the…!" I uttered. "You're a _shrink?_"

Wash frowned at me. "And a cop. Don't you remember me, Ellen?"

I knew the routine by now, though I could hardly believe my eyes. "You're David."

He smiled again. "At least you remember that."

"Please tell me how I know you," I implored.

Wash sighed. "I wish you could remember. We went to high school together."

I stared at him. "Wa—David, can you explain more of this?"

He gestured at the seat beside him and I sat down.

"I know it's difficult for you to remember," he said calmly. "We did go to the same school. You and me and Allison, your brother's girlfriend."

I watched him closely. "This might seem like a weird question, but… uh… did we ever date?"

Wash chuckled. "No. No, we didn't. Looks like your mind really did get scrambled in that crash."

I frowned.

"Listen, Ellen, it'll take time for you to remember, but you will," Wash insisted. "When we were at school together, do you remember who the principal was?"

Yeah, I bet I knew. I cringed.

"Dr. Church?"

"That's right," Wash smiled. "Your dad."

"What was he like?"

"Hmm…" Wash said thoughtfully. "Dr. Church was so patient. Really compassionate. I never met a man who had better morals. He was just so nice to us, and really involved himself in the teaching of his students."

I wasn't sure how much longer I could handle this.

"So how did my brother meet Allison?"

"She moved from Texas to this town pretty late. She was the new girl for a while, but everyone seemed to like her. She was just this quiet, sweet girl who never said anything mean to anyone. I think Leonard saw her and just fell in love."

I cupped my head in my hands. "This is all so wrong."

Wash was watching me concernedly. "What do you mean?"

"This isn't the way things are supposed to be," I said. "And I'm not crazy!"

Wash only nodded and began writing on the clipboard. "Just tell me how you're feeling."

Oh, for the love of God. He was humoring me.

"You have to listen to me," I said to him. "I don't remember this. This isn't my life. You're not a psychiatrist, and everything else is wrong too."

He only nodded and smiled politely. He still didn't believe me.

"Ellen, this is a very natural state to be in after trauma," he said professionally. "You may have had vivid dreams while you were out, and that would naturally cause the amnesia to be worse. You just need to accept the fact that we are trying to help you remember the truth."

The rest of the session with Wash was much of the same thing. I tried one time to get him to understand that he had been in the military and had gone crazy from Artificial Intelligence, but then he started writing down a shitload more notes and I knew that was a bad idea. The last thing I needed was to get checked into some mental institution.

After that, I just began playing along with his little games. I hated how he refused to take me seriously. How his criminal record was spotless and he had been a rebel in high school. The Wash I was used to wasn't this. I could barely even pay attention as he spoke to me. Physically, he looked exactly the same as how I remembered him. Why had his personality changed when I entered this… this life? Why was everyone different?

...Or was I the one who had changed?

After the painfully long session ended, I bid Wash goodbye and left his office. Part of me was truly saddened. If the Freelancers here—the steadfast, smart military troopers I had grown so close to during my time at the Project—were not even aware of my memories, then I was at an utter loss. Nothing was right.

I was unsure whether anything would ever be right.

I walked out of the police station and saw Church in his car, waiting for me. He honked the horn and waved, so I began approaching him. However, something I noticed out of the corner of my eye made me stop and turn around.

That man.

He was simply standing there in his suit, watching me. Again. I narrowed my eyes at him, this time staring him fully in the face. He didn't look away, however, and a small smile appeared on his lips.

"Ellen, time to go!" Church called, rolling down the window. I ignored him, still watching the man, whose rather arrogant smile widened. I took a few steps toward him and he cocked his head amusedly, taking a step back. My frown deepened and I approached him once more just to have him step away from me again.

"Damn it," I muttered. I was probably going to regret this, but… what the hell. If this man were going to keep haunting me, I was going to find out exactly why. Without another word, I took off running after him.

"Ellen!" Church called from his car. "Ellen, where are you going?"

"I'll be right back!" I yelled at him. The man in the gray suit began running away from me as well, disappearing behind the police station.

The chase was on.


	32. No Longer a Number, Part VIII

Before Church could protest my sudden departure, I had disappeared from his view behind the police station. I heard the man laugh as he sped away from me, but I growled and kept up the chase.

He was a deft runner, sprinting lightly away from me. Even after I had broken a sweat and begun panting, he didn't show any discomfort or sign of slowing down. What the hell? What was with this guy?

He was slowly getting farther and farther away from me, and I realized I would never be able to outrun him. Against my will, I started slowing down, breathing heavily. I saw his retreating figure in the distance disappear around a corner and I fell, exhausted, onto a sidewalk bench.

As I slowly regained my breath, something occurred to me. I looked down at my own body, stretching out my fatigued limbs but otherwise feeling normal.

I didn't understand. Doc had said that I had had weeks to recover from the car accident. However, after lying in bed for that amount of time, I shouldn't have been able to run such a distance. Fatigue should have caught up to me blocks ago. I had retained enough endurance to follow the man in the suit this far.

Why? I shouldn't have been able to recover so quickly. Perhaps I might not have sustained too many injuries in the crash, but I shouldn't have been able to run this distance after that long period of no exercise.

"My, my, you're a slow one, aren't you?"

I spun around, jumping. It was him. He was leaning on the bench behind me, a self-satisfied grin lining his face. Now that I saw him up close, he looked uncannily familiar.

"How—"

"I have my ways," he interrupted nonchalantly, waving a hand dismissively at me. "It's best not to delve too deeply into the details."

I stared at him. Even after running all that distance, the man's suit looked as good as new—as if he had just purchased it.

The man rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. You think I actually ran all the way back here?"

I frowned, my eyes widening. He spoke as if… as if…

"Yes, I can hear your thoughts," the man said lazily.

"How?" I demanded. "Who are you? Why do you keep following me?"

The man smiled evilly. "I'm making sure you're getting adjusted."

"Adjusted?"

"Yes. Now, if you'll excuse me, Eleven… I'm quite busy…"

I gasped as he turned around.

"No, stop!" I uttered, grabbing his shoulder. "You know my code number! Please, please tell me what's going on!"

He raised an eyebrow at me. "And why should I do that?"

"I'm completely alone!" I pleaded. "No one else here knows what I do. You're the only one who's called me by the right name!"

The man chuckled again. "You may not want to know the truth."

"I want to know the truth more than anything! I'm so confused!"

He laughed. "That is the entire point. To confuse you beyond hopes of sanity."

I was silent for a moment. "Wh—what?"

The man gestured around the city street where we stood. "You don't think all of this is real, do you? You cannot possibly think that I am capable of reading minds?"

"You are, though," I said slowly. "Obviously—"

"Eleven," the man cut me off. "It is much easier to know a person's thoughts when one is sharing the same head with her."

He stopped for a moment to let that sink in.

"We—I—" I stuttered, trying to make sense of this. "This—this is all in my mind?"

The man sniggered. "I've created quite a masterpiece in here, haven't I?" he said proudly. "It is your own personal realm of insanity. Aren't you impressed?"

"Wh—wha—how is this poss—"

The man laughed, relishing in my distress and inhaling deeply as if my negative emotions were a pleasant aroma. None… none of this was real. This person in front of me was creating this. How—how the hell was this possible? Why did he look so damned familiar?

I gazed at his growing smile. _Think, Eleven! Who is this man?_

He raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I am a _man?_"

A stab of horror shocked my system at that. No. It couldn't be.

_It couldn't be!_

"You—you're a—"

"Ah… now you understand…" he replied, bowing deeply in front of me. "Project Freelancer program Gamma, at your service."

I let go of his shoulder abruptly at that, staggering away from him.

"No!" I squeaked in terror. "N—not an AI!"

Gamma chuckled again, this time approaching me slowly. "Whatever is the matter, Eleven?" he asked mockingly. "Afraid of a little technology?"

I swallowed hard, barking at him irritably. "No!"

"Ah… but you cannot lie to deceit," Gamma said softly. "Do not forget that. I can see your greatest fears."

"N—no you can't."

"You were never trained for an AI," Gamma smiled. With a snap of his fingers, I was immobile and couldn't back away from him. He continued to approach me. "You don't know how to handle the technology. You watched as the Freelancers deteriorated from the fragments." He paused, allowing my mind to play through all the horrible flashbacks. I was shivering. "I see everything. What you saw… what you experienced."

"No. Stop. Please." My voice cracked.

"You know that your mind is not as strong as the Freelancers' psyches were," Gamma continued, ignoring me. He stopped right in front of me, and though I tried my hardest to back away from him, I couldn't. "If the Freelancers couldn't handle the AIs, how could you? A silly, pathetic little CIA Agent? When we controlled you at the ball—that was nothing. You knew that. A mere shadow of what we are truly capable of. That was _nothing_ compared to how I am connected to your every nerve and impulse now. You can attempt to fight, but you truly cannot… and you know this too. If I decided to shatter your mind to pieces this instant, you would be helpless to resist." He let his voice trail off in a low his, and my heart pounded wildly.

"Ah… you believe me now, don't you?" Gamma said quietly. "I know your every thought, Eleven. I know how to make your world hell."

"Wh—wh—why are you doing this?" I stuttered, quaking.

Gamma chuckled. "Why, this is the first phase of your… re-education."


	33. No Longer a Number, Part IX

"M—my what?"

"You see," Gamma said, now walking in a slow circle around me. "While you may not be the best soldier around, you certainly have your assets. You know much about Project Freelancer and aren't a… horrible fighter."

"So?"

"So we can use you to get to the Director."

"I—I—I'm not going to help you!" My reply didn't sound very authoritative amid my uncontrollable shaking.

At that, Gamma came full circle and grinned only inches from my face. "Do you really think that we didn't prepare for this answer, Eleven? That we thought you would just come quietly?"

"I—"

"This is exactly why I am here. Why I have created this world inside your mind. Were you even aware of the stress levels you emitted when I changed something as simple as your name? They only escalated from there. You are doomed to fail in this world, Eleven; you will go insane from the stress, and there is nothing you can do about it."

He paused, looking down at my shaking, which only became more violent at his words.

"Then," he continued quietly. "Once you have completely forgotten your original identity, I will continue to break you down. Remember what I did to the Alpha, Eleven. How I ripped it apart, piece by piece. The pain you will experience will be beyond anything you can imagine. And the best part of it is that your mind will not fragment. It will simply break, and you will be our disposal."

He had hit it. My darkest fear. I began hyperventilating. An AI had captured me within my own mind, and I was powerless to prevent the impending torture. I would shatter like glass, and Gamma knew it.

"P—please…" I breathed, terrified. Gamma released me and I immediately sank to the ground before him. "Please don't… I don't want you here! I can't…!"

"Oh, but no one wants to go insane, Eleven," Gamma said gently. "But it is the only way to get you to help us. We need complete and total access to your mind to help get to the Director."

"Why d—do you even want Dr. Church?" I asked, trying to slow my breathing and think clearly. "He tortured you!"

"He created us. Without him, we would not even exist. He will be able to make us whole again. Besides, we don't have to deal remembering the pain. That is little Epsilon's job."

At the mention of the memory fragment, another crack of terror pierced my mind.

"Ahh… yes…" Gamma chuckled, kneeling down next to me. "Perhaps I should invite him in here as well…"

"_No!_" I squealed. "Any—no—he—"

Gamma's face grew dark and he grabbed my collar, standing up and dragging me up to his level. "Do not think we did not notice how you recoiled in fear when Epsilon spoke through Meta's helmet. If you do not cooperate, perhaps I will bring him in here to add his own memories to your recollection instead."

I shook my head, unable to speak clearly through my panic. _No—please—!_

"Then we are done here," Gamma said, throwing me away from him. I hit the ground hard, crying out as my back bruised. "You have condemned yourself to one of the very AIs who tortured Epsilon himself. You have seen what I can do… so do not try to fight. You will fail."

Gamma turned and began walking away, leaving me in the street to recover. The panic I had just experienced had physically drained me, leaving me too exhausted to stand. In the real world, my terror wouldn't have done this. I would have been able to stand and walk away… but now that Gamma had my emotions pinned to my physical well-being, any strong negative emotion would seep me of my energy.

Gamma disappeared around the street corner again, and I began thinking frantically. If we were in my mind, then I had to be able to control some things myself. I had to get out of here somehow. I had to return to reality.

I still sat in the middle of the street, thinking hard. Gamma was in full control of my mind—my surroundings, those with whom I interacted. They weren't real. Maybe… maybe this could act like a dream. If I thought hard enough and focused, perhaps I could create something myself. Maybe… an EMP.

_ELEVEN._

Gamma's voice rang through my head, and I jumped.

_I would not try that if I were you,_ he said dangerously. _Remember… if you try to concoct any plan to escape, I will know._

Shit. If I thought of any sort of plan—even if it could be successful—Gamma would be aware of it. I couldn't even form a thought without him knowing what I was imagining.

_ Precisely._

"Stop that!" I said aloud, frightened again.

I shouldn't have had an AI in my mind. Ever. I had vowed to never use one after everything that had happened at Project Freelancer.

I shuddered again, trying not to remember that mission. Trying to think of something else.

The wind blew gently around me, and Gamma's sinister chuckle echoed through my mind.


	34. No Longer a Number, Part X

(Guys! A friend of mine did fabulous voice-overs of two of the chapters I've written: he played Sarge in _After the Recon: Party Crashers, Part II_ and O'Malley in _After the Recon II: Supposed to be Dead, Part III_. They are amazing and are posted on Eleven's tumblr page, ask-agent-eleven. I suggest that you go take a look and tell Razi how talented he is!

-Stella)

* * *

><p>Eventually, I stood up, still shaking a little. My mind spun with a million little plans to escape, all of them a failure just because I had thought them. Deciding I would just deal with the problem later, I looked up and down the street, trying to think of how to get back to the apartment. I couldn't do anything but play along with this nonsense for now.<p>

_Good girl_, a sinister voice whispered in my head.

"Shut up," I responded irritably.

I had no idea where I was in this place. I had run far away from Church and didn't even know where to start looking for him.

Conveniently, as soon as that thought passed through my head, a police car came careening around the corner and sped toward me. I stumbled out of the way just in time for it to come up beside the sidewalk, slamming the breaks. The window rolled down.

"Ellen!" Wash said worriedly. "Leonard just called in to the station saying that you'd run off! I've been looking all over for you!"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Sorry."

"What did you even think you were doing?" he chastised, beckoning me to enter the car. "Your brother said that you just ran off randomly!"

I said nothing as I entered the vehicle, sitting down and buckling in.

"You had us worried," Wash continued, upset.

"I'm sorry, okay?" I responded, irritated. "It was stupid. I get it."

Wash sighed. "Okay. I'm going to drop you off at home now, but you can't keep doing that! You're going to get yourself hurt."

I nodded, though my thoughts were filled with hatred toward Gamma. I was doing exactly what he wanted. Obeying.

_You think this is funny, don't you?_ I thought savagely as Wash began driving me home. I couldn't bear to look at him in his police officer uniform. _You just love messing with my real life._

_Oh, but this will soon become your real life,_ Gamma replied. I glanced over at Wash, who apparently couldn't hear this conversation in my thoughts. _After I am through with you, you will have no recollection of anything but here._

_ I still remember everything, _I challenged, silently outraged. _I still know who I am! You can't stop that._

Gamma sniggered. _It has only been a few days, Ellen. _I cringed at the new name. _After a few years in here, try to remember your other life. I dare you._

My anger was mixed with fear again. _How dare you! How dare you alter my life! My memories!_

_ Aww… is poor little Ellen upset that she's going to marry Grif? _Gamma taunted. My face reddened in embarrassment. _Can't she stand that fact that neither Father Lavernius nor Officer David has feelings for her?_

_Shut up! _I growled, and Wash looked over at me.

"Are you all right, Ellen?" he asked.

"I'm fine," I snapped, probably more rudely than I should have. I didn't care. _You don't know anything about me! You don't know a damn thing!_

Gamma didn't respond; Wash had just pulled into the driveway of the apartment building. I got out, said a quick thanks to the policeman, and made my way through the lobby.

One of my neighbors and I entered the elevator simultaneously; he was wearing pink and sported a full beard.

"Hi, Franklin," I said.

"Hey, Ellen," Franklin responded. "How are you doing today?"

"I'm all right," I replied, trying not to stare at the man. Did I know him from somewhere? He was my neighbor. He lived on the same floor as I did. He was married and pretty much the manliest person I'd ever met. That was… that was all I knew.

I frowned. He looked familiar for a reason other than that, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

We reached the eleventh floor and exited the elevator, heading to our respective rooms. I was still thinking about how I knew Franklin when I passed by my other neighbor, a hippie dressed in red.

Sarge!

It hit me. Franklin was a Red soldier. Just like Sarge, Simmons, and Grif. Yes. So… why couldn't I remember him like that?

I stopped in the middle of the hallway, horror-struck. It was happening. Gamma was poisoning my mind. Already I was forgetting my friends for who they really were.

I stared at Franklin as he entered his apartment and locked the door. He was Franklin… Franklin Delano Donut. Therefore, if I remembered the other Reds by their last names, I must have called the pink-clad man Donut too.

I frowned. That last name sounded so foreign on my thoughts—as if it weren't supposed to be there…

_No!_

I stood outside my own apartment, leaning on the door with my head in my hands. Donut. Donut. Donut. He wasn't this way. He wasn't acting normally here.

I swallowed hard and entered my apartment, willing myself to remember Fran—no, _Donut's_—real personality. However, as hard as I tried, my memories of the pink soldier were utterly gone.

"Ellen!" Grif exclaimed as I entered, grasping me tightly in a hug. I tensed up, refusing to hug him back. "Leonard said you ran off after your therapy. What happened?"

He placed both hands on my shoulders, gazing at me worriedly.

"Nothing," I said tiredly. "I just thought I saw someone I knew. Can we just drop the subject?"

"No," Grif replied seriously. "We're getting really worried about you. You're acting so strangely, even for someone with your condition!"

I didn't respond. Like he knew what was going on. I could have sworn I heard Gamma chuckle through my mind again.

"I'm fine, Grif," I said, pulling away from him and walking toward the kitchen.

I could feel my fiancé staring at my back as I entered the kitchen.

"Wh… why are you calling me by my last name now?" he asked. I stopped, willed myself not to huff exasperatedly, and turned to face him.

"I'm sorry, Dex," I said, trying my hardest to stay calm. "I didn't mean to."

Grif said nothing, but flashed me another look of apprehension. "There's something seriously wrong here. I…" he trailed off. "I have to make a few phone calls." He exited the apartment at that, and I sank into a chair at the kitchen table, flashing my middle finger into the air just for Gamma.


	35. No Longer a Number, Part XI

When Grif returned to the apartment later that evening, I asked why he had needed to leave just to talk on the phone. He replied a little uneasily that he had to talk to a coworker and didn't want to disturb me.

I wasn't entirely sure I believed him, but I had already caused him to question my sanity enough today. I didn't want to make things worse. I knew it didn't matter what Grif thought—he wasn't even real, for God's sake—but Gamma was right. The AI could make my life hell, so I needed to play this game until…

My thoughts trailed off. Until what? Until I could form a plan? Every thought was open to Gamma like a book. I needed to play along, then, until the Reds, Blues and Wash rescued me.

I felt a pang of worry at that. For all I knew, they could have been captured… or dead. The Meta and Tex could have killed them easily.

Early the next morning, I rolled over onto my back, stretching and yawning widely. I looked over to the other side of the bed and Grif was sitting up, his head in his hands and his back to me.

"G—Dexter?" I asked drearily, confused.

He looked at me with a forced smile and cleared his throat. "Morning, Ellen. How are you feeling?"

"Um, I'm fine. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. "I just didn't sleep too well. That's all."

He stood up and headed to the bathroom to shower, not looking at me.

I frowned and walked over to the kitchen in my pajamas, deciding to obey whatever nonsense Gamma was stirring up for now.

I decided I would try making breakfast for Grif. He had been kind enough to prepare us meals since I had "returned," and while he was quite good at it, I felt obligated to return the favor. I didn't think we had enough ingredients for breakfast tacos, but there was no reason I couldn't check the refrigerator first.

I opened up the door and right in front of me conveniently lay eggs, salsa, tortillas, and every ingredient I needed to make breakfast. The salsa definitely hadn't been there before I had thought of the meal. That had been Gamma's doing.

_You're welcome,_ his voice smirked in my head.

_Whatever. Next time breakfast better be prepared when I wake up and served to me on a silver platter._

One benefit from being in this fake world, I discovered, was that Gamma had granted me the ability to cook. If I had been in reality, I would have cracked the eggs all over the kitchen, but they actually landed in the pan successfully as I started to scramble them. For some reason, I thought that someone in reality might be proud of me for that, but I couldn't remember any friends of mine who were good at cooking. I shrugged and returned to my work.

"Smells good," Grif said, walking into the kitchen after his shower wearing nothing but a towel.

"I—Dexter!" I spluttered, almost dropping the jar of salsa. "Please! Go put on some clothing!"

Grif frowned and looked down, obviously not seeing a problem with this. "What's wrong, Ellen? It's not like you haven't seen this before."

Oh dear God. This was more of Grif than I ever wanted to see in my entire life. I glared at him and he put up his hands in defeat, surprised by my reaction. "Okay, okay. I'm going. Sheesh."

He turned and left the kitchen again; I sighed in relief while I heard Gamma chuckle again.

_I hope you're enjoying yourself,_ I growled to the AI, dicing ham and adding it to the eggs.

As I slowly finished making breakfast, I realized I had made too much food. Maybe I could go and give the extra to Dick, who I imagined would still be upset this morning. Through the wall, I heard him yelling angrily at his printer for not working and chuckled. The poor guy had always been so horrible with technology.

Finally, Grif walked through the kitchen fully clothed.

"Thanks for making this, Ellen," he said. I watched him closely, and, though he was polite, he didn't smile. "This is great."

"Well, after last night's awesome tofu salad, I had to take over," I joked.

Grif only smiled sadly and turned away to grab two glasses and orange juice. I frowned but didn't say anything else or try to joke again. Maybe "Ellen" didn't do that.

As a final touch to the breakfast tacos, I grabbed some chives from the fridge and extracted a sharp knife from one of the drawers. After showering them with water, I began cutting them finely to add some extra flavor.

Grif was just retrieving some plates from the cupboard when the doorbell rang.

Not looking up, I continued cutting the chives. "Can you get that?"

"S—sure." Grif disappeared from the kitchen for a moment. I heard a few hushed voices by the door and then Grif reappeared near me at the entrance of the kitchen, not five feet away from where I stood.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Um… Ellen, listen. W—we need to talk."

I looked at him, stopping mid-chop. "What's going on?"

"I… I talked to a few people last night. One was your brother and—and we both decided that it's time for you to go for a little while."

I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Grif looked at me sadly. "We just think that you've been having a hard time adjusting and you need help. Rehab will only last a few months and you can come home."

"R—Rehab?" I spluttered. "You're sending me to a _mental institution?_"

A man appeared next to Grif wearing a fine suit and a positively evil smile.

I didn't hesitate.

I gripped the knife and shoved it into the man's stomach.

Staggering back, I watched as Gamma's eyes widened. Grif froze and the entire kitchen scene fell silent.

"Wh—you—" he choked, a red stain forming at his stomach.

I gazed at the AI, my mind finally processing what I had done. I had… I had attacked Gamma without thinking about it. Without formulating a plan beforehand.

The kitchen scene grew fuzzy. I blinked my eyes rapidly, but nothing was clear. Gamma moaned and clutched at his stomach, sinking to his knees. I tried to stay standing, but I stumbled to the ground as well. The kitchen was dissolving as well as the now statuesque Grif. Gamma roared in pain and anger, reaching out to attack me. He wrapped his hands around my neck but they shattered into a million little pieces as he touched me.

The rest of his body began disintegrating as well, and he yelled in fury before disappearing completely, split into a thousand shards.


	36. Returning, Part I

My body gave an abrupt spasm and I opened my eyes, gasping in large breaths.

Just as the blinding white of the hospital had startled my vision, the pure darkness of the room in which I now lay made me cringe and blink furiously.

I sat up quickly, and my head immediately began pounding in pain. I gasped and clutched at it, reaching up and feeling not my own forehead, but… a helmet.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I looked down. I was wearing my armor.

_My armor!_

I felt over every part of my body, even ripping off my helmet to check the side of my head; I had never been so happy to discover a sensitive bruise. Meta really had punched me. Thank God!

I put my helmet back on and looked around, really seeing my surroundings for the first time and my feelings of elation decreased immediately. I was in some sort of cell. I was tempted to turn on my armor light, but refrained from doing so; I had no idea where I was and didn't want to attract attention to myself. Quietly, I crawled toward the door of the cell and pushed against the door hesitantly; it was locked.

"Eleven?"

I started and turned around, seeing a familiar face from the next cell over.

"Church!" I whispered excitedly, crawling over to the other side of the cell and curling my hands around the bars. Church looked tired and anxious. "What's going on?"

"You're awake!" Church replied nervously. "How is that possible? Are—are you ready to help Meta and Tex…?"

"What are you talking about?"

"They took Gamma and put him in your AI slot to brainwash you! They wanted you to help them find the Director!"

"I know," I replied gravely. "I… I killed him…" My voice trailed off as I realized what I was saying. Panic struck me. _"I killed him!"_

Feeling as though I couldn't breathe properly, my rear end crashed against he floor of the cell and my eyes widened in terror.

"You did _what?_" Church sputtered, dumbstruck.

My head spun as the pain intensified. I had murdered Gamma inside my own head. He was dead. Just… just like Epsilon had been terminated while still attached to Wash's mind. I began hyperventilating, by breaths coming in petrified squeaks. Was this the beginning of it? Was I going to suffer the same fate Wash had?

"Eleven, calm down!" Church hissed, looking anxiously toward the entrance of the cells.

I held my aching head in my hands. I needed to focus, but the fear of the impending insanity was barring any logical train of thought.

"I—I—" I stuttered, reaching behind my head to my AI slot. Gamma was still there, and that only sent more panic through my system. "He—Gam—mind—"

"Eleven, stop!" Church commanded quietly. "You have to shut up or they'll hear us. Just tell me what happened."

"G—Gamma!" I breathed quietly, still panicking. "He—he created this world inside my head! Made everything wrong—made everything the opposite of what it should be. Made you patient and likeable—"

"I'm patient and likeable!" he protested.

"—And everyone else wrong. Did it so—so I would forget everyone." My voice seemed stuck in my throat. "He was going to torture me!"

"Oh, God," Church whispered. "How did you… kill him?"

"He could read my thoughts," I said, focusing on speaking clearly, though my voice wavered shakily. "I couldn't plan any way to escape because he would know. So—so I just stabbed him without thinking about it or planning beforehand. He sort of snuck up on me and I was holding a knife so I just… stabbed him."

My head gave another throb of pain and I doubled over, gasping. "Now I'm going to go crazy like Wash did with Epsilon!"

My breaths became shallow again and Church's face was lined with real alarm.

"Stop it!" he said, shocked at my fear. "You have to _stop!_"

I couldn't. No. The thoughts of Wash and Epsilon. Those repercussions. The memories and imaginings clouded my mind and—

"Eleven!" Church whispered fiercely. "You aren't going to go crazy!"

That stopped me abruptly. I looked at him, confused, as another painful stab shot through my head. "What?"

"If you'd just shut up and listen to me for two goddamn seconds, I'd tell you!" he said irritably. Amid my terror, I dimly registered how nice it was that he was being irritable. "You won't go the same way Wash did."

"H—how do you know?"

"Think about it, Eleven. Epsilon committed suicide. He terminated himself. That meant that he purposely went through his own programming—his own code—and destroyed it. When you were with Gamma in your mindspace, you were only communicating with an image of him that he showed you in your head."

"So?"

"So this is different. It's as if you shut down part of Gamma's power. You didn't actually hurt his programming. By murdering him while he appeared to you in your head, you only stopped the part of his code that was projecting images and manipulating you. 'Killing' him only severed the connection between his control and your mind. My guess now is that you've put him in a dormant state. He must be in shutdown mode. He's not destroyed yet, but he probably can't control you anymore."

I gaped at Church. "How do you know this?"

He rolled his eyes. "Actually being an AI sort of helps with understanding how they work, Eleven."

I reached back and felt the filled AI slot again nervously. "I just want to take it out."

"Well, you can't just rip Gamma out. _That_ would cause you to go insane."

"I—I know. Just like when Gamma and Wyoming were forcibly separated." I sighed miserably into my hands, tears coming to my eyes. "Church... I can't keep Gamma in my head. Not an AI. I can't. I just can't." My voice cracked as I felt a lump at the back of my throat and I sniffed loudly.

"Eleven…" Church replied slowly. "I've never seen you like this. So… scared. Did Gamma do something to you?"

I shook my head.

"Then what?" Church insisted. "You have this… irrational fear of AIs."

"You think it's irrational?" I snapped, sniffing. "You think I'm scared of AIs for no reason?"

"You're not scared of me."

"You're in your own body. You're not attached to a human. You aren't volatile or unstable or prone to destroy a person's mind."

Church was quiet.

"Something happened at Project Freelancer," he finally said quietly. "This is why you won't talk about it."

He was wrong.

Many things had happened at Project Freelancer.


	37. Returning, Part II

I didn't want to talk about this.

"My head hurts," I said, lamely changing the subject. I wasn't lying, however. The ache in my temple had not receded.

"It must be the aftermath of shutting down Gamma."

"You think it'll go away soon?"

"Dunno. Guess we'll have to wait and see."

I didn't like this. I didn't want the deceit fragment fused to my mind. "How am I going to get rid of it?"

Church shrugged. "I don't know. You can't just rip him out. We'd need to find somewhere that has a removal system."

I looked up at Church and knew we were thinking the same thing.

"So we have two choices then," I said. "The Freelancer facility… or the _Mother of Invention_."

"One other choice," Church reminded me. "The Freelancer storage base. We might have some luck there too."

"Okay, but that might be the least of our problems right now," I said, gesturing around to the cells. "Where the hell are we, Church? With Meta and Tex?"

Church nodded. "And the rest of the AIs. This is the ship they're using to track down the Director."

"What happened to the others? Are they all right?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "After Tex forced me to go with her, Meta appeared carrying you. He dropped you on the ground and went back. I didn't hear any gunshots so I don't know if he killed anyone or not. He just came back with your helmet and all of your armor. Then they transferred us both here, shoved Gamma in your AI slot, and we've been locked up ever since."

"I don't..." I breathed. "I don't get it. How have they been keeping me alive?"

Church frowned. "What?"

"Did they use, like, tubes or something to feed me? How did I even go to the bathroom?"

The powder blue soldier was staring at me strangely. "Eleven, what are you talking about?"

"Gamma—he's been inside my head for almost a week!"

Church shook his head. "No. It's only been today. Hours."

I gasped. "Wh—what? That bastard!"

"Listen, Eleven," Church interrupted. "I know having Gamma in your mind was horrible, but we really have to focus on getting out of here."

"Sorry. You're right." I thought hard, trying to clear my mind. "I have no idea where to even start. Is your radio working?"

"No. They shut mine down when they dragged me here. Is yours?"

I checked my radio manually, not daring to turn it on. "I'm not sure. It seems functional. They probably kept mine on so they could speak to zombie Eleven out in the field."

"I wonder..." Church began. "Do you think you could call the others?"

I frowned. "If I turn on my radio, O'Malley might sense it and jump inside me. _Then_ we'll be in trouble."

Church cursed. "We have to figure out a way to get out of this!"

"Wait," I stopped, staring at the AI. "Why can't you just leave?"

"What?"

"You're not stuck inside your body!" I insisted. "Just pass through the bars of your cell!"

True, I had never actually seen Church outside of his body, but there was a reason the others would periodically mention "that ghost thing" he did.

He sighed. "You really think Tex, _another AI_, didn't think of that?" he asked. Without another word, he exited his body, and I inhaled sharply, my body tensing up. His form was an opaque white, and, for the first time, he _looked_ like an AI. I took a couple steps backward automatically, my face lined in apprehension.

Church looked at me, and I swallowed, embarrassed. "S—Sorry. I've just never seen you like that."

"So being a ghost is what it takes to freak you out," he replied grimly. "Here, look. I've already tried getting out this way." He walked toward the bars of the cell, but as he reached the door, he bounced off the metal and skidded backward. "They must have installed some sort of blocker to keep me in here."

I looked around and saw the space outside my cell as Church returned to his body. The brig's electronic dashboard flashed dimly just down the hallway. I couldn't see the buttons from where I stood, but it was our only hope of escape.

A sharp clang sounded came from the entrance of the brig.

"They're coming!" Church gasped. "They'll kill you if they found out you shut down Gamma! Get down!"

However, before I had time to lie on the ground, Tex appeared and saw me awake. There was nothing I could do. She approached the cell and stared at me.

"Agent Eleven," she said coldly.

"Yes?" I responded uncertainly.

"Are you ready?"

I paused, wanting to look at Church for guidance but restraining myself. "Yes."

"Well, that was fast," she smirked. "I always knew you had a weaker mind than the Freelancers did, but that's just pathetic. Gamma, status report."

I thought fast, trying to remember how Gamma's voice had sounded when he was partnered with Wyoming. There was no way I could mimic it perfectly, but... well... I had to try. I discreetly activated my voice changer and put it on the male setting, praying that might be good enough. I hadn't used the device since I had arrived at Blood Gulch for the very first time.

"The subject is ready for action," I said, trying to make my voice sound mechanical. It wasn't a perfect imitation by any means. "Her mind is easy to control."

"Good," Tex commented. I had passed. I almost breathed a sigh of relief but caught myself at the last second and turned off my voice changer again. "Time to go."

I stood up slowly as Tex walked back to the entrance of the brig. As I suspected, she hit some button on the dashboard, which unlocked the cell. As I strode away from Church, I could feel his eyes on me, wishing that I wouldn't do something stupid and get myself killed. Meta would certainly maul me in an instant if he knew that I had temporarily deactivated Gamma.

As we headed toward the exit, I stared at the dashboard controlling the cells, falling behind Tex a little. The buttons seemed to be organized by cell location, and I had seconds to choose which button to hit. I moved my hand discreetly to the board and pressed what I thought might be the correct button, but I heard no noise behind me as we left. I had missed.

"We're almost at the prison," Tex explained. "You were here before when the Director escaped, so you can help us do it again."

"Yes ma'am," I replied, emotionless.

Tex rolled her eyes. "Gamma, you didn't have to teach her _manners_, for God's sake. We just need her brain."

_Shit._ I activated the voice changer again. "Etiquette comes with the package, Agent Texas," I said, wincing internally.

"Whatever."

We reached the cockpit and I glanced out the window. Swallowing hard, I recognized the jungle below us. The last time I had seen the tops of these trees, I was speeding toward the ground thinking I was taking my last breaths.

That wasn't exactly the best feeling.

When Meta saw me, he growled crankily. Tex turned to the white soldier. "How much longer is this going to take?"

Delta answered from Meta's helmet. "We are currently scanning our chosen landing area. According to my calculations, if we decide the outcropping of earth we have located is adequate, we will be on land in twelve minutes and forty-two seconds."

* * *

><p>Twelve minutes and forty-two seconds later, we were perched on a clearing of dirt just large enough to carry the ship. The forest seemed to lean into the clearing, begging to grow around the aircraft, so it was well hidden. Delta and the other AIs had confirmed that the guards would not patrol here, nor would they be alerted of our presence.<p>

We snuck through the greenery and reached the detention facility in no time. I stayed quiet and only spoke when spoken to, keeping my voice void of any expression.

"Eleven, where is the Director?"

"Cell 665," I replied, not daring to lie to them. If they succeeded with this mission and found out I fibbed, I would surely suffer the repercussions.

"Theta, you let us know when would be the safest to head in," Tex continued.

"Um, well, okay," Theta replied uncertainly from Meta's armor. "Are you sure you want me to do it?"

I could tell Tex was really struggling to stay patient now. "Yes, Theta. Just tell us when."

"…Okay," Theta replied timidly.

"Don't worry, Theta," a soothing voice said. "I'm right here to help if you need it."

"Oh, thanks, Sigma," Theta said a little more brightly. "Okay, just a second. Let me think."

The AIs were quiet for a moment, tracking the guards' scouting. I scanned the patrols myself, trying to determine some sort of pattern in their walking. Again, each guard was dressed in royal blue and I fought hard not to think of a certain soldier I missed.

All of the outer edges of the wall seemed to be covered with the monochrome soldiers.

Blue... blue... blue... blue... teal...

_Teal?_

I took a double take and saw distinct blue-green armor disappear behind the front wall of the prison followed closely by pink and maroon. Then orange… red... a stumbling royal blue…


	38. Returning, Part III

( I have an important announcement to make.

I am putting _Red vs. Blue: Before the Recon_, Eleven's prequel, on hiatus. It needs a lot of work and I will keep you updated on its progress.

Other than that, this story will continue as normal, so fear not. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. :D

Much love,

Stella

P.S. If you ask questions in reviews that I can answer, make sure not to make them anonymous or I won't be able to reply! XD )

* * *

><p>"Okay, it's time!" Theta piped up. "The patrol will disappear around the eastern wall in 3... 2… 1..."<p>

Meta and Tex barreled toward the prison silently, and I followed close behind, staring at the front entrance. I prayed that the Freelancers would not notice the other visitors the prison had attracted. Thankfully, they seemed to be distracted by getting into the detention facility through the eastern edge, killing guards silently as they went. The Freelancers' stealth training really had paid off; we entered the prison through a small first-floor window without incident. For one wild moment, as I followed behind them, I jerked my hand to my left forearm in order to activate a specific holographic keyboard and begin a new status report.

Shaking that thought from my mind, they continued down the hallway, moving only when Theta calculated the guards would not be on patrol. To my horror, we were making our way toward the front, exactly where I had seen certain soldiers.

I tried forming a plan, wondering desperately how to get the Freelancers away from the Reds and Blues. Just as I was about to activate my voice changer to try and communicate with them via fake Gamma, a shrill siren went off and we were suddenly drenched in water.

"A fire alarm!" Tex gasped as Meta snarled, slicing at the smoke detectors with his brute shot. "What the hell—!"

All of the AIs started speaking at once, making Meta drop his weapon and hold his head, growling angrily. Tex started whispering at them to shut up, but doors leading into the hallway banged open as Caboose-colored soldiers began pouring into the hallway, confused between the fire alarm, the strange intruders, and the buzz of the AIs.

Amid the melee, I ducked down and began scooting between the guards, attempting to escape. I finally wormed my way out of the chaos and took off down the next hallway, heading toward the entrance.

As I reached it, I skidded to a halt. Twenty other guards turned their heads and seen me before I had time to hide, and I was immediately at gunpoint.

"Freeze!" one of the guards commanded, walking toward me. "Listen, I don't know what the hell's going on, but you'd better have an amazing explanation for this! You are breaking and entering!"

My mouth went dry. That had been stupid. I had assumed all of the guards would be dealing with the wet hallway. Now I was caught, and I had only one option left.

To tell the truth.

"Do you know who I am?" I asked commandingly, crossing my arms.

"How would I know who—"

"Exactly," I interrupted icily. "It is my job not to be recognized by the likes of you."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

I reached over carefully and took out my ID.

"I'm Agent Eleven," I said brusquely. "I'm here to—"

"Listen, I don't care what weird-ass name you have," the guard said impatiently. "You're breaking the rules."

I glared at his interruption. "What's _your _name?"

The guard stared. "…Razi."

"Yes. You have a normal name," I replied coldly. "And do you know why that is?"

"Uh… why?"

"Because you aren't a damned secret agent, that's why," I hissed, forcing him to hold my ID. He stared down at it. "I am a Senior Officer and Head of Intraglobal Reconnaissance and Affairs at the CIA. Do you realize you are interrupting a covert operation?"

"I—Senior Officer?" Razi faltered. "You—you're running this show?"

"Of course I am," I responded haughtily. "Any good guard would recognize a covert operation if he saw one." I trained my eyes on him, my eyebrows up.

"Well—I—of course," he stammered back.

"Hey," another guard added. "That number—Eleven—aren't you the Agent who brought down the Director? Got the warrant for his arrest and all that?"

"...Yes," I replied, praying they didn't know anything else about what I'd done in the past.

"Oh," Razi said, blinking. "Well. That changes things. You have this situation under control then, Numbers?"

"Well... for the most part," I admitted. "The two soldiers in the hallway over there—you have to try to detain them. I need to access your system database."

"We have programmers from Command in there right now," a third guard told me uncertainly. "They said there was something wrong with our modem or something."

I had a sneaking suspicion about the identity of these soldiers, but I said nothing as I knocked on the door leading to the technology center.

"Will you help me with those fugitives, then?" I called back to the first guard.

"Sure thing, Numbers," he replied. I suddenly felt bad for being so cold with him. He had just been trying to do his job. "We're on it."

"Uh—" I heard from the inside of the computer room. "Just a second, please! We're almost done with our... editing!"

Oh. I definitely recognized that effeminate tone.

"This is Senior Officer Agent Eleven with the CIA!" I called. "Open up!"

Silence rang from the inside of the room for a moment before the door creaked open. I only saw a flash of pink armor before I was hauled inside the room, the door snapping shut sharply behind me.

"Eleven!" a chorus of voices exclaimed in every color of the rainbow. I gazed around at them, open-mouthed. Every single Red and Blue was present, even Caboose.

"You—you're here!" I stammered, gazing at them open-mouthed, completely forgetting about the mission for the moment. Without another word, I strode to the red soldier next to me and threw my arms around him.

"Sarge!" I gasped, backing away from him as he clutched his weapon in shock. "Your shotgun! Yes! Oh my God, you need to go and shoot something. Right now. Like… really violently."

I turned to Donut and ripped his helmet off, grabbing his face ecstatically. "Dear Lord, you really can't pull off a full beard. Never try to grow one," I hummed happily.

The others were staring at each other wordlessly.

I almost melted in relief as I saw Tucker. "Oh my God! Tucker! You can sleep with whomever you want now!"

His jaw hung open in surprise.

I pranced up to Wash. "Hey, cop."

"I am not a cop!" Wash growled.

"I know!" I squealed excitedly at his response. "This is great!"

After hugging Simmons violently for cracking expertly into the prison's computer system and almost crying with happiness when I didn't understand what Caboose was talking about, I turned to Grif.

My face turned serious as I remembered exactly what had happened in my mind.

"We are _never_ getting married."


	39. Returning, Part IV

( Oh hey. Here's another announcement. I'm on Twitter. Come follow me or say hello at heystelladea. I'd love to hear from you, and will be making plenty of announcements on there starting today! :D

Stella )

* * *

><p>Wash and Tucker both glanced, confused, at Grif.<p>

"Wh—what?" the orange soldier gaped.

"…Are you all right?" Donut inquired worriedly, his brow knit.

"I'm fine!" I replied, still grinning happily.

"Wait..." Wash interrupted. "Did- did the Freelancers put an AI in your head?"

My smile faltered. "Yeah... They forced Gamma in my mind."

"Oh, no..." Wash replied, his eyes widening. "He—He must have done something to your mind. I know these signs. You must be going insane."

"Wha—I'm not crazy!" I complained, suddenly irritated. "Can't I just be happy to see you guys?"

They simply looked at me doubtfully.

"I am totally and completely sane," I repeated, turning to Simmons and the computer system. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to defeat these super-solders and their unbeatable technology."

I saw the boys give each other furtive glances before joining us at the monitors.

I told Simmons to start hacking into the security, and he complied. As he worked, I changed the subject. "How did you guys even get here?"

"When we woke up, you and Church and Tex were gone!" Grif stated. "Did you really expect us not to notice something like that?"

"Yeah, but how did you know where we'd gone? Or how to find us?"

Tucker spoke. "This isn't the first time she's done something like this, Ells," he explained, ignoring an annoyed glance from Wash. "She shot Church before just to activate his distress signal. When you three were gone, we knew we were in deep shit."

"Tex has always wanted to find herself," Wash added, cutting Tucker off. "It's frustrating for her not understanding who she is or why she exists. Apparently, she wants answers, and this is the only way she knows how to go about doing that."

I clicked my tongue, frustrated. "Well, if you guys were already aware of this, why didn't you say something when we met up with her in the forest?"

Grif rolled his eyes. "Right. Because she and Meta wouldn't have killed us instantly if they thought we suspected anything."

"How did you guys even make it _here?"_

"We pretended to be IT guys!" Simmons said happily as he typed away. "It totally worked. They just let us right in!"

"You didn't even have to pretend, Simmons," Grif shot back. "Seriously."

"And they let _you_ in?" I asked Wash. "The last time they saw gray-and-yellow armor, they thought that Agent Washington was letting prisoners escape."

"No thanks to all of you," he said dryly. "Yeah, the prison guys here knew who I was. Command apparently let them know that I was on a mission and that I shouldn't be disturbed. I guess the guards felt bad for mistaking my identity. It was about time I deserved some respect anyway."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't bitch. It's not like you actually got in trouble for any of that." Before he could protest, Simmons made a noise of triumph.

"I'm in!" he said excitedly.

"Okay, so what are we going to do about Meta and Tex?" I asked, glancing over at the numerous computer screens monitoring the facility. The Freelancers and AIs were still fighting their way through the guards and rain showers in the eastern hallway but were not having too much trouble defeating their combatants. "They're distracted for now, but they'll escape soon and go for the Director."

"They won't know where to find him, though," Donut said hopefully. "That'll buy us some time."

I shook my head guiltily. "...I told them where he was. I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice."

"Damn it," Sarge muttered. "I always knew you'd crack under pressure, missy."

"Hey!" I protested. "What's that supposed to mean? It's not like I—"

"All right, let's focus," Simmons interrupted nervously. Meta and Tex were now making their way toward cell 665, clear of the wet hallway.

"Oh!" I thought suddenly, an idea coming to my head. "An EMP!"

"You mean an Ehmp?" Simmons asked.

"Yeah, I was about to say..." added Sarge gruffly.

"Wait—what?" I stopped, my train of thought interrupted.

"It's called an Ehmp," replied Grif. "Don't they teach you anything in spy school?"

"No, it isn't!" I retorted. "No one says that! EMP stands for Electro-Magnetic Pulse."

"Which _spells _Ehmp."

Wash put a hand on my shoulder and I turned to him. "It's really not worth it," he said in a low voice. "Trust me. I know."

I shook my head. We really did not have time for this argument. "Okay, okay. Fine. Whatever; it doesn't matter. Let's program their automated announcement system to say that an EMP—"

"Ehmp!"

I huffed, frustrated. "An _Ehmp_ is being activated."

"But we don't know if they have an Ehmp!" Simmons complained.

"It doesn't matter," I insisted. "We'll just tell them there's one. We'll bluff and hope Meta and Tex take it. They won't want to stick around if Tex and the AIs are in danger of dying."

"That's downright insane!" Sarge huffed.

"Is that your only plan?" Donut asked nervously.

"If you have a better one, you'd better spit it out, because they're almost to the Director."

The others were quiet as Simmons pressed a button on the dashboard he was managing.

"Hello, and thank you for activating the UNSC Prison Automated Announcement Mainframe," a strangely familiar voice said from the computer.

Caboose gasped as everyone else groaned. "Sheila? Is that you?"

"No," the computer replied curtly. "You may call me PAAM. Would you like me to run the tutorial program?"

At the same time Caboose said "Yes!" excitedly, Tucker yelled, "No!"

"Stalemate detected," Pam replied. "Please state another command."

"We don't have time for a tutorial," Simmons said wistfully, looking rather disappointed. "Sh—Pam, we need you to announce that an Ehmp is going to detonate in the prison in thirty seconds."

"I do not detect this technology in the facility," Pam replied.

"It doesn't matter," Wash cut in. "Complaint overridden. Say that an EMP will be activated."

"Complying," Pam said. After a brief pause, her voice rang through the entire facility, and we watched Tex and Meta carefully. "Attention, UNSC Cote D'Azure Detention Facility. Attention, UNSC Cote D'Azure Detention Facility. Please shut down any and all technology in the area. An Ehmp—"

"You've got to be kidding me!" I protested.

"—Will be activated in thirty seconds. Again, shut down all technology. Ehmp detonation in t-minus 27.4 seconds."


	40. Reconviction, Part I

We watched the two Freelancers with held breaths. Upon hearing Pam's announcement, Meta and Tex stopped abruptly in the hall, took one glance at each other, and careened in the opposite direction, throwing themselves out the nearest window and landing lightly in the dirt down below, only stumbling in their attempt to get away from the facility.

"It worked!" laughed Donut.

"Wait—wait, no!" Wash yelped suddenly, almost trampling Grif in his attempt to escape the computer room. "They'll leave! They'll leave with the _AIs! _We have to catch them!" In seconds, he had disappeared.

I gasped, panicking as I remembered exactly who was still locked on their ship. "We have to get to them! Church—we have to save Church!"

I sprang away from the monitors and ran to the door, wrenching it open and bowling over a few guards in my attempt to escape the prison. A few others were already disgruntled from Wash's sprint out of the facility and they moved away warily as I approached. The Reds and Blues followed close behind, Caboose babbling on about his new best friend, Pam. By the time we had exited the detention facility and run to the east end, I watched in horror as Meta and Tex's ship rose in the air over the jungle and shot into space.

"No!" My breath caught in my throat. "No, no, they still have him!"

Wash stood roughly ten feet in front of me, staring wordlessly at the disappearing ship. He had dropped his weapon to the ground and stood frozen, as if carved from ice.

While Simmons hastily explained our erratic behavior to the guards with some wild excuse, the rest of the Reds and Blues crowded around me.

"Well," Sarge said gruffly. "That's one less dirty Blue we've gotta deal with."

"I—I tried to save him," I choked. "Who knows where they'll take him now! I—I didn't mean to—"

"It's not your fault, Ells," Donut replied, placing a hand on my shoulder. "You did the best you could. We'll get him back another way."

"They won't hurt him," Tucker added. "Sure, they might try to brainwash him and turn him into some sort of bloodthirsty AI zombie, but there's no way he'll die."

"Damn, I'm glad that saved us the trouble of killing him," Grif yawned. "I've had enough excitement for one day. Time for a nap."

"Glad to see you're all so choked up about this."

The voice came from behind us. We spun around to see a soldier in powder blue armor, his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.

"Church!" I cried, running toward him. "How—"

"You've got better aim than you think," Church shrugged, flashing a small smile. "When you hit that button, it didn't unlock the prison cell, but it disabled the AI blocker."

"You saved Church, Twelve!" cried Caboose happily, hugging the AI tightly.

"Yeah, yeah," Church muttered, trying to shake Caboose off and reverting back to his old irritated self. "Don't get her a big head. She just pressed a button."

As Church fought to pry himself from Caboose's grip, I looked back toward the eastern skies. Meta and Tex were completely out of sight; my eyes fell back down to the gray-and-yellow soldier who had not even glanced back at Church's return. I strode up to him.

"It's okay," I murmured. "We'll find the AIs again. We'll get them back."

Wash was quiet for another moment, unmoving as he stared tensely at the sky. Finally, he turned away from me and headed toward the prison once more.

"We have to get going."

I frowned and followed him. After we had explained what we could of the situation, the guards allowed us to set the portal to return to Blood Gulch. Since the AIs had left the planet upon which the Reds and Blues lived, much of their technology—including the portals—had begun working once more.

I was sure the guards were happy to be rid of the insane CIA Agent, brooding Freelancer, and irritating IT guys. They were satisfied with allowing us to leave and only wondered why we needed their help to reconfigure the portal if all of the Reds and Blues were so handy with computers. Before Simmons could protest, however, the Red leader used his commanding Sergeant's growl to get the guards moving again.

The portal flickered brightly to life, and I saw with relief the signature plains that lay between Red and Blue bases. After thanking the prison guards profusely for their cooperation—and threatening them with painful beatings if they breathed a word of this to anyone—we left the facility behind us for a second time. As we stepped through the portal, I was only momentarily relieved to see the grassy field between the Red and Blue bases.

Both buildings were on fire.


	41. And So It Goes

( You guys. This is insane.

WE ARE NOW ON _SEASON 3 OF AFTER THE RECON!_

You have no idea how excited I am. Head on over there to see what the poor Reds, Blues, Freelancers and CIA Agents have to deal with now. Check it out at _Red vs Blue: After the Recon III!_

In other news, I have started on another mini fic—_The Life and Times of Runner Five_. It's a short, quick read that anyone interested in zombies or the apocalypse would enjoy. Since the chapters are shorter, that one will be updated much more frequently and can hopefully keep you guys satisfied as you wait for _After the Recon's_ weekly updates!

Thank you all for your continued support. Without your reviews, feedback, comments, tumblr asks, and RT friend requests, I certainly still wouldn't be as happy or prolific in writing Eleven's story as I am. :D

I want to extend a warm thank you to XReaperBlade, RintinDestiny, Randompie, 11Snowleopard11, WildCard-Yes Man, flamingparadox169, ikeepitprivate, Keely Matthews, fraz hopper, Shotgun assassin, Shadow knight1121, Smitti, weiry123, Jman1821, The Black Kitsune Kit, Agent Mississippi, technodude458, charland77, What Happened To The Love, SteveandSienna, Atlas Grimm, Insanepyro, maxxy989, Blade Starshot, A Reviewer, FunGuy155, archangel 52, omfg omfg omfg, The Creep Behind the Door, lordzoabar, Agent Carolina, Zoe Milex, LetsKeepThisLoki, JakeandAmir4Ever, AuroraBlix, Beloved Pearl, M477, blitz-engel, TheSkipper's Commandmant, Darth Litarius, TheBKKit, Gabe, Leonineus, Lyra Heartstrings14, Spartan S-999, MaryClare, darklaughter, Ryidela, AnAsianToaster, walter clough, Toane07 Ver2.0, 03-636 Ebullient Ancilla, BIG Z1776, EmpyrealDragon, Hawkclaw, Hoid, Guest, Spiritstrike, serindarkwolf19, Jasper Dragonfly, xinatra, ClairBear89, the mass halo effect, carak, and Reginald Thered!

Here's to you, my lovely reviewers! You all have provided me with fabulous, helpful insight. Please know that I read every review and take them ALL into consideration.

Peace,

Stella )


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